Re: I came, I saw, I was disappointed...

Tim Streater <tim.streater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Tim Streater <tim.streater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Paul Russell <prussell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]

Is there? I can't say I've ever met that one.

All these things invented in the UK and developed abroad - and everyone
saying how shocking that is. People haven't understood the basic point,
as I say, that the *invention* is only 1% of the problem.

*Which* people are these that you are talking about? Joe Bloggs, yes.
But not anyone who actually invents things. I grew up with a successful
(for decades) freelance inventor as a friend of the family; my dad made
some of his prototypes and did the occasional small production run and
of course none of this ever used any of the firm's out of hours workshop
time, oh no. Okay, so he was a stateless person rather than a Brit, but
he seemed to have exactly the same line on this as anyone else I've met
who invents and/or develops for a living: invention is only a tiny part
of the problem of making money from making things. Obviously! All you
have to do is `do it' the once, and you find out, right?

So what are you blathering about? Is this just mindless bigotry on your
part, or what?

(Stateless person? Yeah - he'd been born a German, and Jewish, and then
1936 rolled along. He could have taken up a nationality if he'd wanted
in the end - but he'd had enough of nation states by then. A bit of an
anarchist in many ways.)

The invention itself is 1% of the problem. Manufacturing, sales,
marketing, support, distribution, are 99% of the problem. This is what
is not appreciated in this country.

I can't say I've noticed that. What *is* missing is the desire to
behave in a devious, despicable, underhand and semi-illegal fashion
which is what you have to do just to survive in the business world. I
think it's because the technology people here just aren't devious,
nasty, vicious, underhand types (like S. Jobs and W. Gates, for example)
is why they've failed.

What a load of cobblers.

How so? If you're in anything but `under the radar' (that is, no-one
else really cares what you're doing) business, you've got to be dodgy or
you go bust.

Met large numbers of business people, have you?

Yes, lots, all over the place. I used to write technical trade rags for
my living. And - well, I've poked around and heard lots of stuff I
wasn't supposed to in various ways, quite aside from being a paid
scribbler.

Are you trying to suggest that Bill Gates and The Steve are *NOT* nasty,
vicious, underhand types?

(actually, I suspect of the two, I'd prefer the company of yer man Bill
- The Steve is not a nice person at all. Bill's just `one of them')

Regarding 'can't invent it here', Acorn is a good example of that - I'm
told they wanted to or did develop their own video cards instead of
buying them in.

Eh? I don't get this at all. What are you trying to say? And what
Acorn video cards?

As I understand it from my nephew (one of the founders of Eidos), at the
time Acorn got out the the desktop computer market they had been trying
to design their own video card for their next Archimedes instead of
buying them in. If true, a poor business decision.

At the time Acorn exited, the firm had basically collapsed, hadn't it?
Whether or not they were developing a video card wouldn't have made any
difference, I don't think.

The original poor business decision was putting resources into
developing the BBC Micro line in the early to mid 1980s rather than
getting the ARM and Archimedes sorted. If they'd got the Arc out in,
say, 1985 or even '86, things would have been much better for them - but
they didn't put enough resources into the ARM and Arc early enough, '87
was too late, and the rest is history.

Sponsoring a car racing team wasn't such a good idea, either.

[snip]

FWIW, back in the early days of microcomputers, if you wanted video
circuitry, you had to design it yourself. One of the student projects
when I was doing my first degree was designing an improved video card
for the lab Nascom IIs. Apple had its own video circuitry for years and
years - Apple 1s, Apple ][s, Apple ///s, Lisas, Macs - all with nothing
but Apple-designed video circuitry, right up until they got to Macs with
NuBus and even then, Apple supplied its own designs of video cards.

Of course.

Umm - er? Yeah? So why was Acorn particularly stupid to be doing it
the way others were?

It's only been recently (since the late 1980s? Early 1990s?) that
`everyone' has started to use a third party video card.

Well that's my point. The demise of the Archimedes was well within that
time frame.

Well, yes, but so what? It was only come the 1990s that it was obvious
that you should buy in your video cards, right?

Rowland.

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