COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 47

I WAS RIGHT, THEY WERE WRONG
I suggested to a couple of the top engineers that we should start a company (RCA wasn’t interested) to make copies of the IBM 1400 series computers. I was sure we could produce them just as good, and at far less cost than IBM’s price. The engineers thought that might be OK, but convinced me it wasn’t worth the effort.

A year or so later, Honeywell Inc. did just that, and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of copies of that particular IBM computer. A few years after that, a different division of RCA sold a billion dollars worth of Spectra 70 computers, that were copies of another set of IBM computers, the 360 system. As time went on, the computers that came to be known as the “PC” were copies of the original IBM desktop computer, and the instruction codes in the “IBM Compatible computers,” are copies of the original IBM desktop computers.

Each time I needed to attach another device to a computer, such as a printer or a card punch for example, the engineers seemed to always say, “$50,000 and three months.” In my ignorance of the details needed, and not being a first rate prophesier of where the computer industry was going, I believed the engineers when they said my idea of creating a programmed device controller, made no sense.

What the device controller needed to do was to sense data and control signals, determine what they were, then respond with either data or other control signals. One programmable controller with a small memory and a few instructions, would result in a device that could control the operation of a printer, a card reader, a card punch, or whatever. But the engineers said, “NO!”

Well, makes you wonder doesn’t it, if I’m so smart, why ain’t I rich! This better be the end of this bragging session, before it gets completely out of hand.