Altair - A different perspective

From: Ward Donald Griffiths III <gram_at_cnct.com>
Date: Fri Aug 14 20:32:45 1998

Doug Yowza wrote:
>
> On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Bob Wood wrote:
>
> > It is likely that I am the only person on this
> > list who is a total "outsider". I am a collectibles
> > dealer.
>
> I have no problem with this. The more diverse this list, the better. I
> am aware of others who are also on the list that share the profit motive,
> so I believe you're not alone.

Never knock the profit motive. It's the main reason that most of our
systems were manufactured -- admittedly Woz was just trying to build
himself a computer as cheap as he could, Jobs was in it for the money.
And of course Tandy was strictly for profit -- as a stockholder I
understood (having acquired stock as an employee), though I left when
they went 100% PC compatible, not wanting to lower my standards -- an
obvious bad career choice. I can trust the motives of a man out to
make a buck, but somebody who wants "to make the world a better place"
I'll keep at arm's length -- Hitler and Stalin had that objective each
from their own definition of "better". Idealists are much better at
destroying the world than mere wimpy Capitalists.

Other than that, within a few weeks I hope to have finally installed a
Color Computer 3 and Multi-Pak and HD and floppy controller into the
gutted shell of an old Compaq "portable" abandoned this last TCF. The
display interface is the hard part, since I haven't found a color tube
that fits, and the original tube really doesn't gray-scale well and is
on its last legs anyway. (The 8088 motherboard is a wall decoration --
they were too popular to keep for "uniqueness" sake or "collection
value").
-- 
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
Bill Gates has this situation where the federal government wants him
convicted for attempting a monopoly.  Has Bill considered responding
with a question as to why there's only one Justice Department?
Received on Fri Aug 14 1998 - 20:32:45 BST

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