[Info-vax] Dave Cutler, Prism, DEC, Microsoft, etc.

[Arne Vajhøj]

Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> Michael Kraemer wrote:
>> Neil Rieck schrieb:
>>
>>> <quote>
>>> ”BTW, this was not an usual procedure at DEC. Many employees left the
>>> company with intellectual property from a cancelled project under
>>> their arm, with the understanding that if they made it a commercial
>>> success then DEC would come back knocking on the door for for
>>> royalties.“
>>> </quote>
>>
>> And still people wonder why DEC went down the drain.
> 
> It was never a mystery to me!  DEC was totally out of touch with the 
> market place.  The the RAM for the Rainbow that DEC sold for ~$700, I 
> bought at the Trenton Computer Festival for $30 US!  The 20 MB disk 
> drive that DEC sold for $2200, I bought for $300.  The 5-1/4" floppy 
> disks that DEC sold for $5 US each, I bought for $0.50 each and 
> formatted them myself in spite of the fact that my Rainbow "could not 
> properly format a floppy disk!"
> 
> There were about 20 different models of a 20MB disk from DEC!  The 
> differences between the models?  It was the mounting hardware!  I could 
> go on but I hope you get the idea.

That explanation sounds a lot more convincing than IP going
out the door.

Arne