David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Micron Computers was a moderately successful attempt by Micron Technology, a maker of computer memory chips, to market PCs. First released in 1995, the venture succeeded very well at first, and survived in the marketplace until November 6, 2008. Although not widely remembered today, Micron made dependable, reliable PCs at a fair price.
The first Compaq computer was its eponymous Compaq Portable, announced November 4, 1982. It was a suitcase-sized clone of the original IBM Personal Computer, with an Intel 8088 CPU running at 4.77 MHz running Microsoft MS-DOS. It was hardly the first non-IBM computer to run MS-DOS, but it was the first legal IBM PC clone with a high degree of compatibility.
Compaq shipped the first unit about four months later, in March 1983. It originally cost $2995 for a single-drive unit. A dual-drive unit, which was much more useful, cost $3,590.
Charles David Tandy was the chairman of the board, president, and chief executive officer of the Tandy Corporation. He was born May 15, 1918 and died November 4, 1978. Tandy was involved in the creation or expansion of three retail chains: Tandy Leather, Radio Shack, and Pier 1 Imports.
So it’s November 1997. The Internet is catching on and you want to start an online business. You just need a big idea. How about selling toys on the Internet? That could be big, right? Hence etoys.com, a short-lived Internet retailer founded November 3, 1997.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. While etoys was founded in November, the idea dated back to February 1997. That’s when former Walt Disney VP Toby Lenk joined up with Bill Gross, founder of a net startup incubator called Idealab, to start building etoys. They secured financing by September and launched in November, just in time for the 1997 holiday season.
If you are working on an IBM PC/XT model 5160 and need to remove a floppy drive, you may find it difficult to remove after removing the two visible screws that hold them in. If your IBM disk drive is stuck, I have a top secret tip that will help.
Johnston’s Electric Train Shop was a family-owned business in St Louis for about 50 years. As its name suggests, it was a storefront in St Louis’s Dutchtown neighborhood, and advertised itself as St Louis’ first hobby shop that specialized in trains.
But there’s more to the story. This is a classic American Dream story, a small business idea borne of financial hardship that led to owning the building it operated out of and employing 11 people.
It was eight years ago, on Oct 28, 2018, that IBM announced its intention to acquire Red Hat, the Linux vendor, for $34 billion. Its Aug 11, 1999 IPO had been the 8th largest first-day gain in the history of Wall Street at the time. The acquisition closed in July 2019.
42 years ago today, on October 28, 1983, Texas Instruments announced it was discontinuing the TI-99/4A computer and withdrawing from the home computer market. It was a stunning admission of defeat for a company that had everything it took to absolutely dominate the home computer market: vertical integration, name recognition, pre-existing relationships with retailers, and a compelling design. Let’s look at what went wrong.
October 27, 1982 is the date on the IBM 5150 Revision B BIOS, making this week as good of a time as any to look over the differences between the Revision A and Revision B IBM PC 5150. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a Revision A vs Revision B IBM PC 5150? Maybe more importantly, is one of them more rare than the other?