Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 31, 2021
Silicon Cowboys
We’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Steve Tuck, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, and others. The recording is here.
(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)
Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:
- Silicon Cowboys documentary
- Open by Rod Canion
- Portable before Compaq, Silent 700
- Osborne Effect
- PBS Silicon Valley documentary
- IBM’s role in Compaq history
- 80’s Ads: John Cleese, Charlie Chaplin
- Compaq and iPhone?
- Decline and Acquisition
- Something Ventured documentary
- PRs welcome!
[@1:25](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=85) Bryan: Have you listened to the Reply All episode “Is the Facebook Microphone On?”
The truth is actually scarier, Facebook doesn’t need the mic to be on … to read your mind.
Silicon Cowboys
[@2:46](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=166) The 2016 documentary “Silicon Cowboys” follows the rise of the Compaq computer company. (IMDb) (Watch the trailer ~3mins)
I was trying to watch “Halt and Catch Fire” with my kid … and there’s a lot of spontaneous sex breaking out…Fastest to one billion in revenue… fastest to Fortune 500… a meteoric rise
Open by Canion
[@7:05](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=425) The 2013 book “Open” by Rod Canion (cofounder and CEO of Compaq): “How Compaq Ended IBM’s PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing.”
[@10:02](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=602) Steve: Ben Rosen was the venture capitalist who wrote the first check to Compaq, really got them off the ground. On the board for 20 years.
Their timing was right. The way they did the company was right. And they executed really really well.To go from zero to 50 thousand units, of almost anything, in the time span they did, is incredible.
[@14:40](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=880) Tom: The thing that really put them on the map was having the portable when nobody else did. And being 100% compatible.
Those portables were barely luggable, they were huge!Back in a time when there was no network. Being able to pick up your computer and take it to a place, was your network.
[@16:47](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1007) Steve: A big catalyst for their success was the channel. People were able to pick it up and go, they didn’t need special training.
[@19:25](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1165) Dad used to bring home the luggable so I could play Space Invaders, and he would work on spreadsheets.
Portable before Compaq
[@20:49](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1249) There were portable solutions before Compaq, but for timesharing.
You had the T.I. Silent 700, in the 70’s, you could tote that home and plug it into the modem.
Osborne Effect
[@22:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1361) Tom: They killed their company with the famous Osborne Effect
Bryan and Steve (clearly excited): What was the Osborne Effect!?
Tom: Pre-announcing the next machine.Telling customers: man, if you love the Osborne 1, just wait till the Osborne 2… So they did!
[@24:40](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1480) Bryan: Something I found surprising about the history of Compaq was the different organizational approach that they had.
Early on, before even thinking about what to go do, they were talking about the kind of company they wanted to build.
PBS Silicon Valley
[@26:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1574) The 2013 PBS documentary “Silicon Valley” tells the story of Fairchild Semiconductor. (Watch chapter one ~17mins)
[@28:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1694) We ask people, when they apply to Oxide, when they’ve been most unhappy in their careers. And it all boils down to people not feeling listened to, not having agency.
IBM’s role
[@29:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1781) How much of Compaq’s success is just pure mis-execution from IBM? IBM inadvertently creates this pseudo open architecture, and makes exactly the wrong move in trying to reproprietarize it with the PS/2 and Micro Channel architecture; which is an absolute disaster.
In many ways the story of Compaq is as much the story of the failed PS/2.It was such a mis-execution to do this analysis on the market and say: we need to grab our existing customers and lock them in, before they slip through our fingers, and in doing so, just hasten their departure.
And Compaq was in the right spot to pick up the pieces.
[@33:22](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2002) We were ripping out a bunch of ISA and EISA drivers..
I am a sacrificial sheep, I can’t possibly go. You are a sacrificial lamb.The machines themselves are anemic, if you want any functionality you go to a third party..
There were magazines filled with advice on which sound-generating card you should buy.
[@37:00](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2220) Driver for Token Ring.
[@40:20](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2420) Speaking of Intel, a big part of the Compaq story is what happens with the 386.
IBM clearly thought Intel would never give some clone manufacturer the first rights to the 386.They went from fast follower to innovator.
[@42:07](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2527) One of the headwinds working against IBM was that all the software companies wanted to see more competition in hardware vendors; they wanted to see the clones become real companies.
Certainly Microsoft aided the rise of Compaq, no question. Compaq turned Microsoft into a real believer.
80’s Ads
[@43:11](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2591) I loved the 80’s ads.
John Cleese: Compaq Portable vs a Fish ~2mins
Cleese: I suppose the fish could give you a mega-bite! (laughs hysterically)Cleese: The Compaq Portable 2 however can run all IBM’s most popular software, 30% faster than IBM can!
(dryly) HA HA HA
Bryan: Absolutely no joke, I knew Charlie Chaplin first through the IBM PC ads. I didn’t even know they were making a reference!
IBM Charlie Chaplin ads compilation ~9mins. (Aside: these are new to me. For me it painted the computers as accessible/approachable, something anyone could do; even a clumsy Mr. Bean character)
You guys need to stop mocking the Chaplin ads. They were marketing gold and as a 5 year old watching bunny rabbit ear TV seeing those ads in the middle of Scooby Doo, I was begging my parents for an IBM PC!
[@47:10](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2830) Adam: My parents got a free Mac Plus when they opened a bank account! I know it’s crazy anachronistic.
Adam: In ’86 we had a Commodore 64 and then upgraded to a Mac Plus.
Bryan: That’s a big upgrade! Adam: It was incredible.
With the banner program, you could print “Happy Birthday”, and probably other messages, but it never came up..
Compaq and iPhone?
[@50:59](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=3059) Book and documentary ask: What if Compaq had made the iPhone?
I think it cheapens the whole thing. No one should feel an obligation to claim their role in history by connecting themselves to the iPhone. The iPhone is not the pinnacle of human history.Just take your wins, and there are many of them. But, the time that they were dominant, that’s the story.
Decline and Acquisition
[@53:24](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=3204) The movie ends when Canion is fired, by Rosen, which is pretty amazing.
To be fair, DEC killed DEC.
I feel like the later history of Compaq is this sugar high of sales continuing to spike, but then ultimately it’s the ruin of the company. The company ceased to be an innovator.
Compaq systems, at this point, were very expensive. And this was part of the controversy of Rod getting run out, was not wanting to go down market.
[@59:51](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=3591) Speaking of HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) and Compaq, they just relocated their headquarters to Huston.
I feel like HP hasn’t been a Silicon Valley company in a long long time.This was like the animals walking upright, where Compaq became a lot like IBM in a lot of their sales tactics.
Something Ventured
[@1:02:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=3761) The 2011 documentary “Something Ventured” investigates the emergence of American venture capitalism. (Watch the trailer ~2mins) (Watch the documentary ~85mins)
A 7 million dollar iceberg sitting in the datacenter, this Tandem. They were so reliant on it, they had another shrink wrapped just sitting on the datacenter floor, in the event that the first one ever went out.Jimmy Treybig is a super interesting character. Very iconoclastic engineer.I didn’t realize that Tandem made KP. If it weren’t for Tandem, Kleiner Perkins wouldn’t have risen as a VC firm. They went all-in on Tandem, and Tandem had an outsized result.
Our next Twitter space will be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time. Join us; we always love to hear from new speakers!
Creators & Guests
What is Oxide and Friends?
Oxide hosts a weekly Discord show where we discuss a wide range of topics: computer history, startups, Oxide hardware bringup, and other topics du jour. These are the recordings in podcast form.
Join us live (usually Mondays at 5pm PT) https://discord.gg/gcQxNHAKCB
Subscribe to our calendar: https://sesh.fyi/api/calendar/v2/iMdFbuFRupMwuTiwvXswNU.ics
That that is actually much more recent than that. Let's just say that I ended up let's just say that Steve and I were having a conversation, this past week where, you know, we've worked together for so long that I will infer his silences to mean things. And I was drawing, like, he's inferences from his silences and was spending, like, 4 minutes talking to what was actually a dead phone.
Speaker 2:It's like, no. No. You're right. You're right. It's definitely No.
Speaker 3:No. No.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what it is. It's like, but what if we do this? Oh, you know what? You're right. I you know, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:That's tough feedback, but I appreciate that. That that would not have worked if I had not thought of it that way. And then the or the really embarrassing thing is, are we recording this? I assume we are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We have just started the recording. So the the the the truly, and I try to, like, break the ice a little bit with, like, hey. You know, a's won, though. And I get, like, nothing. And I'm like, whew.
Speaker 1:Okay. Alright. We gotta I don't work out of this one. And then, finally, I'm like, talk to me, Goose. And that was when when I got nothing out of that, I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Hello? And I'm like, how long has the spaces to listen to my
Speaker 3:device at
Speaker 4:all hours of all days. There you go. Yeah. It's spaces to listen to my device at all hours of all days.
Speaker 1:There you go. Yeah. Just have to allow Twitter spaces to listen to your microphone. So it can tailor ads for you, obviously.
Speaker 3:It's a fair bargain.
Speaker 4:I already have enough hot mic ads sitting in my phone. What's another one?
Speaker 1:It's trying to serve you. The, the have you listened to the reply all on is the Facebook microphone on? No. It's I don't. Oh, no.
Speaker 1:It's Sounds terrible. No. No. It's it's it's excellent. We'll link to the show notes.
Speaker 1:So they, because there's this, like, very strong anecdotal evidence that the Facebook mics are on that that Facebook is has the mic on. And Facebook, ardently, denies that they they use the mic. And the truth is actually, in some ways, even scarier in that Facebook actually doesn't need the mic to be on to figure out to read your mind. Because the the the Facebook mics that are hot are all of the people in your network that are experiencing the same things that you're experiencing. So in other words, you may have a conversation with somebody, and then all of a sudden, you get an ad for something that you have not typed into your phone at all, but that you were talking about.
Speaker 1:And it's because the other person did something that Facebook recognized and then fed that ad to you.
Speaker 4:Anyway. Yeah. I'm pretty sure on top of the analytics they can pull, they're also just direct listening to you. So Well, then Okay.
Speaker 3:Why not
Speaker 4:why not do both?
Speaker 1:You can do both. Right. Well, you're thinking about what we're thinking. Well, this is a good it's a good reply, I'll say. So it's worth that.
Speaker 1:We're listening to it.
Speaker 2:You're getting to start getting ads for tinfoil hats, Steve.
Speaker 4:Funny you should say that.
Speaker 1:Alright. So, we've been we had this one in the in queue for a little while to, talk about Silicon Cowboys, which I Adam, I assume I put you on to Silicon Cowboys. Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
Speaker 1:And, Steve, I know I put you on to Silicon Cowboys.
Speaker 4:I thought I put you onto it. No. You you very much did. You you recommended it, and it was, a great recommendation.
Speaker 1:And so the the history here is that, actually, I was trying to watch Halt and Catch Fire with my 13 year old. And the, I don't know if folks watch halt and catch fire, but I'm like, I would would like to watch this. It's about effectively about compact, loosely based on compact. It turns out, as my 13 year old observed, it's like, that is is there this much sex in computers? I'm like, no.
Speaker 1:No. Not really. This is, like, there's a lot of spontaneous sex breaking out here. This is this is really not a and it got to the point where it's like, again, you know, he's not you know, he's he sadly is a child of the Internet, so really nothing can faze him. But he did just find it, like, boring that there was so is it that can we just, like, watch something that doesn't have as much sex in it?
Speaker 1:Like, alright. So this is how
Speaker 5:it sounds.
Speaker 1:So looking, Cowboys, and then I think I turned I can't remember the ordering, but I turned both of you onto it. And yeah. What'd you think about the documentary?
Speaker 4:It was amazing. I, a little bit disappointed in myself that I knew as little about Compaq and their rise as I did, which, I mean, also made the documentary that much more enjoyable because, they do a very good job of narrating the story and and giving it some some Hollywood vibe, but it is, it was fascinating. I mean, I I you know, at at the time that they launched, I was 4 years old. So appreciating that I wouldn't I wouldn't have tracked it at that time, but still, you know, fastest company to a $100,000,000, fastest company to a $1,000,000,000, fastest company to a fortune 500. I mean, just just their meteoric rise was, I was kinda surprised it was off my radar.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Likewise. I I I'm embarrassed that I had no idea of what story it was because
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, in in the like, I don't know. Grow growing up sort of, Compact was interchangeable with, like, gateway computer or whatever, just sort of, like, just sort of gray box. And then, you know, into my into my adulthood, it was, like, literally a punch line. Right? Like, it it had so little cachet that it was, you know, culminating in, in in Scott McNealy's great line of the the sound of 2 garbage trucks colliding
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:When HP and
Speaker 5:Coppin. But but that
Speaker 2:for me, that was compact. So then to see it paint portrayed in this light of this unbelievable success story, you know, but truly driven by this combination of, you know, market and technology and execution. It it it was it was eye opening.
Speaker 1:Oh, they they hit the trifecta for sure. And so just to give everyone some idea of the numbers. First of all, actually, it's ironic you should mention gateway, Adam, because they are actually incorporated as gateway technology. So they
Speaker 2:I saw that. That was that was crazy. Obviously, no relation.
Speaker 1:No relation to, like, Kao based gateway. That's on February 16, 1982. On December 31, 1983, 3, their sales are $111,000,000 On December 31, 1984, 329,000,000 On December 31, 1985, 503,000,000. And that is that those are not real dollars. Those are nominal dollars.
Speaker 1:Those are in 1983, 1984, and $1985. And coming out of a deep depression in 1982, I mean, those numbers are just insane. I mean, it's just nuts.
Speaker 4:Just out of the They did, I think they said so that 1st year, they sold something like 50,000 PCs. And this was I I thought the the the part that was that was fascinating was just thinking back about how difficult it would have been to raise money at that time, and then how difficult it would have been to raise money on the premise of building a computer company that was gonna go after IBM Yeah. Was was even more laughable.
Speaker 2:And and what they've raised, they raised, yeah, 750,000, which in today's terms, I did the math, was, like, 2,100,000. 2,100,000. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. And I know so have either of you read Open by the the No. Okay. No. So I I think it is worth reading the book.
Speaker 1:It's I think the book sadly is misnamed. I don't know why would you call it open, which to me is not what I I associate that with much more with Sun than with Compaq. It should've been named compatible, which is much more Compaq's zeitgeist. But anyway Yeah.
Speaker 3:And quality.
Speaker 1:And quality. Yeah. Right. Misnamed, great book, goes into the the rate the fundraising quite a bit. And, Steve, at the at the risk of limiting both of our careers
Speaker 4:Oh, boy.
Speaker 1:I I feel that, like, the so, the the singular Pierre Lamond serves on Oxide's board, and he told us a story that I feel is safe to retell.
Speaker 4:I'm glad you do.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I will be retelling this alone, and Steve will apparently be throwing me under the bus. No. No. Which is fine.
Speaker 1:Which is fine. It's a safe story. I think it's a safe story. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:So Pierre describes and I and he does not feature it in open. So I'm not sure. So Pierre's at Sequoia at the time and apparently flies to Houston to meet with Compaq as part of their raise. Now based on the book, I think this can't be their initial raise. So February 22nd, they raised 1,500,000.
Speaker 1:I think this has gotta be they raised 8.5 in in September of 82. And I think it's gotta be a part of that raise. He flies into Houston, and and, Steve, correct me if I'm misremembering this. If you dare correct me, if you're just gonna let me just twist out here in the woods. But the, they hit Windshear in Houston, and Pierre describes the experience as terrifying.
Speaker 1:I mean, correct me again if I'm getting getting his description of that incorrect. Pierre?
Speaker 4:Definitely worst worst storm he had ever been in.
Speaker 1:Right. Pierre is so one should know, 90 years old, grew up in Nazi occupied Paris. Pierre does not scare easily as we saw during the pandemic when it was very clear that Pierre had absolutely I think his exact line was COVID will die when it sees me, and he doesn't seem to be wrong. Like, I'm not, like, I'm not calling that bluff. Pierre does not seem to be afraid of anything.
Speaker 1:And the fact that he hit wind shear that was enough to terrify him, that must have been an I mean, an absolutely terrifying experience. This is going So
Speaker 4:they had to redirect to Dallas.
Speaker 1:I don't think he no. I don't think he redirected. I think that he did because my read on the story was he decided that, like, I'm never flying to Houston again, and then he later went to Dallas. Somehow, he he does end up in Dallas and invests in Convex Computer Company.
Speaker 4:Convex. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not quite the win that Compaq. It
Speaker 4:was. Not quite Compaq.
Speaker 1:Not quite Compaq.
Speaker 3:But,
Speaker 4:I mean, kudos to Ben Rosen because that that was I mean, even though we think about about $2,100,000 in $1981, $1982, that was a big check.
Speaker 1:That was a big check. So, Steve, describe Ben Rosen. So for folks who have not seen the the documentary.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So he was the venture capital who venture capitalist who invested the wrote the first check-in Compaq and really got Compaq off the ground. He ended up, chairing the board for, what, 20 years? He was on the board for a long, long run. And, you know, he he's, you know, invested in SGI, like, early check-in SGI, invested in EA.
Speaker 4:You know, in in some circles is considered kind of the the, you know, founding venture capital. And, but, you know, from his seat, that was that was a that was a pretty risky venture. But obviously, he had a ton of foresight and saw, you know, what was what was changing on the horizon. And, but they, you know, I think their business plan, they had said something preposterous. Like, we're gonna do $30,000,000 in sales in the 1st year, which he laughed at, of course.
Speaker 4:Like, well, that's that's totally ludicrous, but I think there's an opportunity here to, potentially build a big company. And the fact that they went on to to do over a $100,000,000 in the 1st year is just amazing.
Speaker 1:And they hit it. And Adam, I think you really outlined that kind of the trifecta that they hit in terms of like their timing was right. They were clearly the way they did the company was right. And they just executed really, really well.
Speaker 2:I mean, even just to go even if the market was there to go from 0 to 50,000 units of almost anything in the time span they did is incredible. And and just the way that they scaled that team, again, from, like, 3 dudes who I mean, I know that they played it
Speaker 5:up in the documentary, but who wanted to who considered starting
Speaker 2:a Mexican restaurant as an all all working to that goal is is just incredible.
Speaker 4:But the odds of them doing what they did in the PC space, just about the same as taking over, like, a chain that runs all Mexican food across the US
Speaker 1:in a year.
Speaker 4:So like who's to say?
Speaker 2:There you go. Could have been something. Right?
Speaker 1:So the the thing I think is interesting is like, we know why did Compact succeed when others did not? And I clearly, like, we're reading their version of events. So, but it it I think it comports with, you know, at least my my childhood inference of events in terms of, like, they really focused on the compatibility and Yeah. On making sure because the all of these PCs were all slightly different and for reasons that we can all easily understand because the PC wasn't very well specified. It was kind of a it was a lark by IBM.
Speaker 1:They're gonna sell 10,000 units. And all of a sudden that explodes. And you've got very thin system software and all of the software making implicit dependencies on effectively the machine architecture, and they were hell bent on making it compatible. And that was something customers wanted.
Speaker 2:Brian, this may be a bridge too far, but to me, it struck me as as some of the, like, first system software as I think of it, like, as that compatibility layer. Whereas everything else was sort of the Wild west, and this was now a retrofitting foundation. You know, creating this foundation where previously, like, everyone had just been divergent.
Speaker 1:Well, no. I don't think you're going too far at all. In fact, I came to view this as, like, original sin in in that on the one hand, it was amazing that they were delivering a this this compatibility. On the other hand, they were doing it by delivering this very low level hidden system software in terms of, like, the bias and so on. And then also having to work with the one thing can they talk about the documentary?
Speaker 1:The fact that they were floating patches back to Microsoft, or is that from the book?
Speaker 2:That's from the book, I think.
Speaker 4:I don't remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's kind of a so basically, they were more compatible with Windows than Windows was.
Speaker 4:And Well, they were more compatible with IBM than IBM was.
Speaker 1:They were more compatible with IBM than IBM was. Yeah. So, Tom, I've got I know Tom Lyon is here. Tom has been joining us every week, which has been great. Tom, I don't know if you're in a position where you can unmute yourself.
Speaker 1:I would love to get your take on the rise of Compact as someone who was at Sun at the time in kind of a different space, but kind of seeing this from the outside looking in.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I have to admit, I'd what I didn't pay a lot of attention to it at the time. We were pretty busy at Sun. But, certainly, we were aware something was happening there. But, but, you know, the the thing that really put him on the map was having the portable when nobody else did and and being a 100% compatible.
Speaker 3:So it was strongly differentiated and still really useful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So my my kind of burning question is which of those is the more important feature? I'm Steve, I don't know if that's what you're gonna say.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I have a I have a guess.
Speaker 3:I think they go hand in hand because one without the other wouldn't get you very far. Yeah,
Speaker 1:I I don't know. They went to the I don't know. I mean, the I mean, those portables were so I mean, I I didn't know I I knew, friends whose parents were attorneys that would use them, but they were, I mean, barely luggable. They were huge.
Speaker 4:So I think you can't have you you can't sorry.
Speaker 2:But No. No. Please do.
Speaker 4:You can't have like, the portability is not is valueless without the compatibility. Compatibility. And, yes, I mean, Tom, to your point, it's like you can't have one without the other. I do wonder if a 100% compatible but not portable, would have presented competitive product that people would have considered. And and, I mean, obviously, the combination of the 2 knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 5:But
Speaker 3:I I I think if they started that way, they'd be competing purely on price
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Which which would not get, you know, the the enterprise's attention very well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Because I I have the same bias as you in terms of the compatibility, but more important. But it's so hard to remember back to a time when, there was no network. Right?
Speaker 2:So, like, being able to pick up your computer and take it to a place was your network, and and was your kind of interoperability story in it to a degree. So it's it's it's so hard to separate that.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I did appreciate they were talking about, you know, it was so no one no one considered the idea that you're gonna carry around effectively what is a sewing machine. And so people are walking down the aisles and planes just cracking people on
Speaker 1:the back of the head by accident
Speaker 4:while they're lugging around their computer was was pretty hilarious. But I think one thing on the compatibility that that was really interesting is was the training aspect. And I originally was thinking about it in terms of, well, yeah, you know, users are not gonna want to have to get retrained on a whole new body of software. But I think one of the things that might have been an even bigger catalyst for their success was the channel. Yeah.
Speaker 4:All the sales and folks that no long that didn't have to get retrained on the pitch for this new computer and were able to pick it up and go. So they talked about, you know, the dealers loved the idea of having another SKU on the on on the list, and they didn't have to retrain or have specialists that were selling these things.
Speaker 2:Yes. But especially in a market where it's this cacophony of different, you know, clone PC vendors. So it made an easy choice probably for these VARs looking to both differentiate and maintain that compatibility.
Speaker 3:Well, the the amazing thing to me is that it took a long time for people to figure out the compatibility was really important. They're you look at DEC Rainbow and the Sun 386i, they were 3, 4 years after that, and they still weren't compatible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's interesting. And it's Tom, it goes to your point too that you would that you need both the compatibility and the portability. And Steve, in terms of, like, the channel that because the portability was kind of what was interesting to the channel. It's like this is something different.
Speaker 1:It's differentiated. And I'm I'm only gonna really feature kind of 3 project 3 companies really prominently. And really prominently and Compact kind of fighting to get into that 3rd spot. It's amazing to think of the and this is something I think it is totally from a bygone era where a retail channel, an in person retail channel is so dominant. I mean, it is like today being like, no.
Speaker 1:No. You won't be able to buy Google AdWords. Google AdWords is only gonna sell to 3 different companies, and the rest of you just can't actually buy AdWords. So you have no chance if you're not in those 3, basically.
Speaker 4:Hey, Tom. I wonder when you talk about, how long it took for people to pick up on the importance of compatibility. And and also as you note as you mentioned earlier, you know, they weren't really on Sun's radar, rightly so. How much of them being off the radar and compatibility did compatibility get pulled into this notion of the clones? Kinda like this whole group of copycat companies that basically just copied everything, and that got lumped in together and kinda stayed off people's radar.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it it's hard to see any kind of long term differentiation. So why, you know, why would the second or third or 4th company do to do that make any money? But, you know, there's Dell, there's gateway. There's lots of people who do pretty well.
Speaker 6:I've I've got an idea about this, the compatibility side of it. Dad used to bring home the Luggable so I could play Space Invaders, and he would work on spreadsheets. And he could plug it into the printer at work, but he could also plug it into the printer at home that we had other times used for, a Commodore. At least I think that was the case. So, like he was able to print either place, so he could physically lug it and then plug it into, many different kinds of printers.
Speaker 6:So you could still print in lots of different places. So it was kinda
Speaker 1:Yeah. Interest so so, Jeff, you grew up with one of these around the house. You you had a an old compact portable.
Speaker 6:Yeah. The the luggable. He would bring it home and then,
Speaker 1:you
Speaker 6:know, he'd he'd get it until about 8 or so, and then I would take over and place based invaders for an hour or 2.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I and on that amber monitor, I assume. I mean, that
Speaker 6:Oh, yeah. Yeah. That that
Speaker 1:that that amber color still, like, speaks to me in a very that speaks to the animal brain. I will obey the amber color.
Speaker 6:And and the coil the coiled, cord for the keyboard.
Speaker 1:That's right. Oh, because it it had that little, like, gutter that went in. And Yeah. Yeah. And those keyboards I mean, of course, like, these keyboards are all worth far more than the machines were ever worth, but these those keyboards were so robust.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Kids playing on them. You know?
Speaker 4:What was the name
Speaker 1:of the
Speaker 3:I wanna point out that there were were portable solutions before Compact, but, for time sharing. So the you have the silent 700 in the seventies where you could put that home and plug it into the modem.
Speaker 1:The silent 700? Okay.
Speaker 3:T I Okay. Thermal printer.
Speaker 1:It's a it's this for the I've got so many questions about the silent 700 aside from a very poor marketing department, I would have to say. I don't know. I feel like but the, so the silent 700 is a TI machine, you said?
Speaker 3:Right. Right. A a terminal, portable thermal printing terminal.
Speaker 2:This is awesome, Brian. It's it's got an acoustic coupler built in. Amazing.
Speaker 1:It's got an acoustic coupler and it's got a built in printer? Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 3:Yeah. It it has no CRT. It's just a printing terminal.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow. It's
Speaker 2:like a half step away from a telegraph. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a typewriter.
Speaker 3:It's your teletype, yeah, 15 years later.
Speaker 6:So it wasn't really silent then if it was printing basically the entire time.
Speaker 3:Well, it was thermal. So it it was it was not noisy. It was, like, lightly kinda hybrid.
Speaker 1:I I just love the fact that, like, what consumers want is not a screen, but actually silence, please. That is actually what I what I demanded my, that's a that's amazing. So that's in the seventies, Tom.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I I used to take one home from Amdahl and, dial in.
Speaker 1:That was work from home on the and that's at, like, 300 bought, I assume.
Speaker 3:I think it's 12.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go. Speedy. The it so What
Speaker 4:was the name what was the name of the device that came right before theirs that they were looking at as it was the 1st Luggable? Alright. It sounds like not the first. But, I mean, the
Speaker 6:I'm trying to remember
Speaker 4:the name of the company that launched that had the only portable
Speaker 5:or Luggable.
Speaker 3:Wasn't it?
Speaker 4:Osborne. There you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's
Speaker 4:what it was.
Speaker 3:And then they killed themselves with the famous Osborne effect.
Speaker 1:What was the Osborne effect?
Speaker 4:What was the Osborne effect?
Speaker 3:Preannouncing the next machine.
Speaker 2:That's right. It gets on stage.
Speaker 3:The current one.
Speaker 2:It says if you love, man, if you love the Osborne 1, just wait till the Osborne 2.
Speaker 1:It's like, I okay. I will.
Speaker 2:I will. So they did. Yeah. Exactly. Wow.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm I'm I'm a little disappointed that my entire management chain doesn't know that, but now they do.
Speaker 1:I don't know. That that's good. It's like, did I early exercise?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Well, I've been hyping up the oxide too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've been talking to the oxide too, like, all week. Like, the no. No. Forget the oxide 1.
Speaker 1:The 2.
Speaker 4:Wait for the 3. The the the may again, like, state of the art for its time, but the screen to rest of machine ratio on that thing was astounding. I think it was like a 2 by 2 inch screen. Just how anyone could see anything on it was was amazing.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 6:Well, that that's I'm sorry. I was gonna say
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 6:That's kinda like kinda like the, Commodore 64 executive edition. The Commodore's luggable, where there was a tiny little screen, maybe 3 inches by 3 inch, and then there was a split. They were they were supposed to put 2 floppy drives into it, but they could only they only had enough power for 1, so they left the other as kind of, like, a empty space.
Speaker 4:It's brutal.
Speaker 1:And when did k k pro I I assume is purely post are they mimicking compact? I mean, I because I had a a math teacher with a k pro with the the the dual floppy something. I think I have a hard drive in it, but it was basically it looked like a military surplus compact. Remember k Proton? No?
Speaker 3:I remember the name, but not.
Speaker 1:Then not not the actual machine. The so in the other thing that kind of I know Steve grabbed you, and I definitely found very surprising about just the history of Compaq was the kind of the the different organizational approach that they had. That I did not know the first thing about. I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well, but then when you know, in watching Silicon Cowboys, I think it was it was very interesting. But it was telling early on when they were talking about before even thinking about what what to go do, the kind of company they want to build. And the fact that they were they were focused on that first coming out of, TI and just seeing it kind of these these large bureaucratic top down decision making and type of organizational structure that that they they suffered under and wanted to create something where you had folks that that felt like they had a real say in what was gonna happen and, you know, focused on teamwork and focused on, having everyone highly invested in their work. I think that was what, you know, both in the organizational structure they created, but then in just the quality of product that they were producing was played a large role in it, which was which was fascinating.
Speaker 1:Fascinating ahead of its surprising. And ahead of its time, honestly. I mean, it was very, I mean, it felt very modern. It felt, in fact, it almost felt almost iconoclastic today, sadly, let alone in 1983.
Speaker 3:They they made
Speaker 2:a big deal about coffee and free soda, which,
Speaker 3:you know
Speaker 4:Yeah. Free Cokes.
Speaker 3:I was watching another documentary, about Fairchild Semiconductor. It's a PBS American experience. Oh. And they they also had a very egalitarian, you know, company culture, at least what they could control on the West Coast. And then on the East Coast, people tried to manage it to death.
Speaker 3:So it was very interesting.
Speaker 1:That is really interesting. And, of course, Fairchild is really the the right at the birth of Silicon Valley with the traders, say, leaving Shockwave Semiconductor, and forming Fairchild. And so it's interesting to kind of that that that that kind of Silicon Valley Foundation now spreading its way to to Texas with what must have been very, I I would I gotta assume, out of step with with Texan Companies at the time. Certainly, from the compact employees they interviewed, it sounded like it was unusual, and people felt valued. They felt listened to.
Speaker 3:I think the part of the part of the documentary talks about how I'm happy they were at TI. That's a repeat structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's TI does come up a couple of times.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Ultimately, the third time, East Coast people took over, and then that caused all all these other companies to be started out of Patron.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 4:Certainly, anyone's gonna stand in stark contrast to IBM in those days. I mean, I think they were innovative in their in their organizational structure, but, I mean, you you had the IBM VP of marketing in his tennis whites at a country club doing his interview. You know, with his with his Ferrari getting polished in the background, it's like, alright. Okay. It's not too far of a jump to go.
Speaker 4:The Dallas area Correct. Right.
Speaker 1:Right. We actually there's some room to actually improve on this without going onto the kibbutz. We've actually got there's a there's a way station here that we can hit pretty easily.
Speaker 4:That's right.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think it's you know, we, for those of you who haven't seen we at Oxide ask people when they apply to Oxide when they've been most unhappiest in their careers. And it all boils down to, people not feeling listened to ultimately, but not having kind of agency. And I thought it was interesting that this is a very a very timeless idea, a very timeless problem, clearly, because, Compaq employees really like the fact that they could, like, actually suggest improvements to Compaq. And they wouldn't always do them, but they'd be listened to. And that's that's important.
Speaker 2:Well, and the the, the CEO was sort of walking around the office and very accessible, and I I think also probably innovative for its time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's the old HP management by walking around, and and that kind of, yeah, accessibility. Again, feels like it's as Steve, as you point out, it feels like it's kind of a low bar to clear there with the the the Ferrari and the country club.
Speaker 4:But they but they did I mean, I think the what it spoke to was later you hear in the documentary how they talk about the only way they would have really been able to compete with IBM is, yes, compatibility was important, but quality was even more important. Because the quality of the system had to knock it out of the park from the very beginning and kinda hold those 1st 3 years, or else they weren't gonna consider it an acceptable alternative to IBM. And and I think that quality was born out of, you know, all the the the folks being as bought in as they were, you know, feeling they had agency, really really, you know, putting all their blood, sweat, and tears into the product, and it showed. So it was, it was definitely definitely a good culture they created.
Speaker 1:Okay. Then so how much of Compaq's success is also just pure misexecution from IBM? Because IBM kind of inadvertently creates this open architecture or pseudo open architecture and makes exactly the wrong move in trying to reproprietize it with the PS 2 and the microchannel architecture, which is an absolute disaster. I feel like IBM I mean, in many ways, the story of of Compaq is as much as the story of the the failed p s 2. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Adam, what do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That that that was what I definitely wanted to ask you about, Brian, because it seems like, they really shot themselves, like, took very careful aim and then shot themselves in their foot.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes.
Speaker 2:On on the microchannel carrot to go
Speaker 4:along with this.
Speaker 1:There's no carrot. All all stick.
Speaker 2:Right. Right. While while also invalidating compatibility. So it it was I mean, I I guess we've seen these kinds of decisions made, but it was such such a misexecution to do this analysis in the market and say, you know, we need to grab our existing comp customers and lock them in before they slip through our fingers. And and in doing so, just hasten their departure.
Speaker 2:I think we we've we've sort of seen this this play several times in the industry, but it's just just remarkable. And and Compaq was in the in the right spot to pick up the pieces.
Speaker 1:Well, and, yeah, I remember vividly the so called bus wars, which were happening. I wanna say this is like 86, 87. And I remember being like a 6th grader and reading, like, the byte magazine, you know, issue on the bus wars between, you know, ISA versus MCA versus ESA, which was what the extended industry standard architecture, so we're just lucky Compaq was championing. And I remember thinking, like, you know, I'm just a kid, but why would anyone use Microchannel? It looks like it sucks.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's just there was nothing to be said for it. They weren't even like other than it was IBM.
Speaker 2:Now do I have this, like, that that that compact retroactively through this, like, of the other PC vendors took IBM's bus architecture and rechristened it the industry standard? I mean, it's it's a it's sort of a brilliant, like like, backwards fuck you,
Speaker 1:right, to take the thing
Speaker 2:that that you are trying to distance yourself from and bless it as a standard, which now it makes you look like you're walking away from.
Speaker 3:So so in small defense of microchannel that, you know, the the whole ISA and ESA, this was a technical mess. It still is. You know? It it lives on today inside your servers.
Speaker 1:It it it is a technical mess. So yeah. They I mean so and m c I mean, MCA was an attempt to do a cleaner sheet of paper. But so, Tom, did you do any microchannel implementation? Maybe you can speak to it with more technical depth than certainly, I never had to deal with it from an implementation perspective because MCA was dead by the time I actually, so MCA was dead, and, I don't know if I'm sure if I have to tell you the story.
Speaker 1:So we were supporting, ISA devices in the operating system for a long time. So when when I showed up at Sun in 1996, we still supported ISA devices in source 696. And I was giving a, I I was, asked the kind of the lead engineer on, what, Solaris what, was it 7? No. I was no.
Speaker 1:I was no. I'm 8. No. That's me. Excuse me.
Speaker 1:It would have been what what would it was was 26. Andy Tucker put me up to give this presentation on what's new in Solaris x86 because he couldn't make it, which it turns out was not the full story. The full story was we were ripping out a bunch of ISA and ISA drivers, And and this was to the, like, ISA driver group inside of Sun. I had no no idea.
Speaker 2:You're like, Brian, I'm a sacrificial sheep. I can't possibly go.
Speaker 1:You are a sacrificial lamb. Yes. That's right. That's that's exactly what it was. And it was to the it was like to the the the Solaris x86 Evangelist.
Speaker 1:So I think it's what that was the group inside of Sun. I don't know where I am. I'm in Cupertino. I'm presenting to a bunch of, like, Sun folks. And then you're like usually, when you get to the the the part of the what's new in the operating system where you are ripping stuff out, like, that goes super fast because it's a bunch of stuff that nobody's using and nobody cares about.
Speaker 1:So, like, yeah, here's a bunch of stuff that you didn't care about or you probably weren't using, and we've been telling you for 2 years not to use, and now it's gone. But, man, I got to that ISO slide, and it was absolute bedlam. All of a sudden, like, the and, like, people are shouting at me. They and and, like, because I I mean, I am the messenger. Like, why not kill the messenger?
Speaker 1:Messenger? At least, like, if you're not gonna kill the messenger, at least, like, send back a severed finger or something. So it was anyway. So I said to this is, like, my exposure to, like, I'd be I said I said device drivers is oh, I always get kinda, like, this little fight or flight Twitch reaction because it takes me right back to a conference room. It's like a 23 year old wondering, like, what the fuck fuck's Andy Tucker just put me up to?
Speaker 1:Well,
Speaker 3:the thing people don't appreciate today is how how many millions of different, ISO boards that were with the more more than the number of USB peripherals today. And, IO has gotten a lot more homogeneous.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. I mean, Tom, that's a very good point because you this is a time when the machines themselves are in Nemac. So if you want any functionality in the machine, 3rd party, to a company that is having its own growth trajectory. You're going to Adlib or SoundBlaster or Creative Labs. You're going to get
Speaker 2:To be clear, I mean, we talk you're talking about so anemic that you're talking about features like producing sound.
Speaker 1:Right. Produce you you don't it was you yes. Producing the do you know what you know, I know Jeff Bezos. No.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 1:I know. I'm I'm I'm trying I'm emphasizing that point that, like beep. That's all they could do was beep.
Speaker 2:I know. I know. That's what I'm I'm emphasizing that point, Brian.
Speaker 1:They could beep. That's it.
Speaker 2:That that were magazines filled with deciding which which sound generating card one would like. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 3:And there was the Hercules card that was wildly popular.
Speaker 1:The Hercules card. Now that there we go. Hercules, that is the all I wanted was a I had an Amdek monochrome monitor that I absolutely loved. I had an IBM PCXT without a graphics card. Sorry.
Speaker 1:This is turning into a therapy session. But all I wanted was that Hercules monochrome adapter, and it was it was, like, $529, and I was never gonna get it. So that's it. And then we got like, a sound card. I mean, it's like, man, if you are a if you're an exer of my vintage, like, the first time you heard an Adlib or a SoundBlaster was like, I have seen the future.
Speaker 1:Like, I don't even want Moonbasis anymore. I don't want hovercars. Like, just like Up here. Up here. I've I've I've already I've arrived.
Speaker 1:And, no, it was it was amazing.
Speaker 3:But then part of the compatibility thing was that if if you told someone that their ISA card was not gonna work anymore, you could be putting thousands of people out of business. It's like it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:So, Tom, you told us a great story about a token ring driver that you for the for the IBM token ring. Was that token ring was that microchannel, or was that
Speaker 3:what was that? That was, like, I saw it. I remember part of that story was, Howard Fraser, one of the hardware guys, also did a, weekend VME to ISOBUS adapter. And so we could run run token ring in one of the big VME boards in the sun. I We actually had running on Spark.
Speaker 1:I had definitely forgotten that detail of a or didn't fully absorb it at the time, but that you had an ISA to VME adapter. And then you're running the token ring writing the token ring card. A tech can read drive on top of that. That is is amazing. So, yeah, Art, so you guys are using VME at the time, and this is before SBUS.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:What's the sun view of what's going on in the PC space? I assume it's just like, good lord. What a what a mess that is.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I was just good lord. What a mess. Right. But the but the
Speaker 3:ISOBUS was never mechanically very well thought out or thermally or any of those things. Yeah. Maybe it was a lot better.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And then s bus had, some of the plug and play features that PCI has.
Speaker 1:Right. And so for the for those who are in terms of the of the history of kind
Speaker 4:of
Speaker 1:kind of S plus VME, the much better thought out, frankly, architectures begin to feed back into the PC. And with PCI, we actually get and start building PCI. Everyone starts building PCI based machines, what, in, like, 2000 and early 2000s. Right, Tom?
Speaker 3:I would've guessed late nineties.
Speaker 1:Or even late nineties. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 6:But, yeah,
Speaker 3:it was a huge improvement.
Speaker 6:Somewhere in the middle there, there was those Visa local bus, the VLB ones that were
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:So weird. Okay. Where where was this where where was the VLB, Jeff? Or is that
Speaker 6:Visa Visa local bus, that was I I think it seems like it was it was like, after ISA, it was kind of like at the EISA time, it was like you could get a video card that was one or the one way or the other.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, the ISA bus was too slow, and people started putting stuff on the processor bus, essentially, where it talked to memory or the memory controller. And that was the VISTA local bus that they standardized.
Speaker 6:So the cards were long, and they had a normal I think it was, like, an ISA connector. And then farther farther along, they had a the v VLB, the extra connector, which I just remember having, like, a brown plug on the motherboard.
Speaker 1:And so for what machine was that?
Speaker 6:This was for PCs, various PCs, the clones, and and you would use it for, video cards.
Speaker 1:Got it. Okay. So mainly video.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Which Later on later on, Intel had a bastardized version of PCI x a AGP. Remember AGP? Those graphics on. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So same kind of idea. It's like, here's a clue for graphics, but we don't want it don't want you to use it for anything else.
Speaker 1:Okay. So speaking of Intel, a big part of the compact story is what happens to the 386, where the the first 3 86 based machine is introduced not by IBM, but by Compact, which is, pretty nuts considering that that the rise of of x86 had happened with IBM for them to to short and it just reminds me of IBM, just like classic arrogance where IBM clearly thought Intel would never have some, some clone manufacturer, give them the first rights to the 3 86. That was that's an amazing part of the story. What'd you guys think?
Speaker 4:Yeah. They they went from fast follower to innovator.
Speaker 3:And I think I I think too there someone in IBM decided that 32 bits was too much and 16 was good enough because they had some strategy with OS 2 as well where everything had to be 16 bit and 32 bit.
Speaker 1:Okay. I do not think I realized this about OS 2. OS 2 was trying to be everything was both 16 and 32 bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Everything had to run on the 286.
Speaker 1:Oh, right. That's brutal.
Speaker 3:So I think someone in IBM decided 32 bits. No. That's mainframe territory. Can't go there.
Speaker 1:Do you think that that's actually the calculus? The people thought it would they they I mean, if that is, it would be very prescient. That's, like, because that's exactly what ultimately happened. It just took 20 years to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well I was surprised, I mean I guess I knew that. And I should also say just for folks that are like, don't hesitate to to hop in here and raise your hand. We'll and and we call it anyone that raises their hand around here. So, just hop in if you got questions or comments or if you use one of these machines or, if you saw the documentary and and hadn't had thoughts about it.
Speaker 4:But to the question of whether IBM would have, you know, whether they they they basically created their own demise or not in this space. I think one of the other headwinds that was gonna work against them eventually is that all the software companies, it was in their best interest to have the the the clones effectively become real companies. Like, they Lotus and Microsoft, I mean, everyone was was interested in getting better distribution across more PC companies at the time. So I think that would have that would have chipped away at it even if IBM had not, again, shot themselves in the foot.
Speaker 1:In other words, it's in the software industry's best interest. I mean, certainly, Microsoft aided the rise of Compaq. No question. And but Compaq turned Microsoft into a real believer. Clearly one like the the the Microsoft hearts and minds, which, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're right. Because they you're not gonna have a software industry. I mean, I remember having to buy software, and, you know, they would say IBM PC and 100% compatible. So it's like compatibility was a major issue in software vendors.
Speaker 4:I do I do have to say the I I loved the eighties ads. Eighties nineties ads, there were some just
Speaker 2:great, great marketing. The John Cleese ones, I I was I was really surprised. I had no idea that John Cleese was the spokesman for compact for so many years. It was awesome.
Speaker 4:How do you not know that?
Speaker 2:And then and then it starts it starts contrast that the IBM ones were, like, featuring Charlie Chaplin or, like, look alikes.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:You're you're like, well, now you're just doing it to yourselves, guys.
Speaker 4:Okay. So introducing their new innovative technologies with someone from the 2030s.
Speaker 5:That's right.
Speaker 1:So as someone who really grew I mean, I knew, like, absolutely no joke. I knew Charlie Chaplin first as an association through the IBM PC. He routes him through the so I didn't even know that that they were making a reference to and and I I mean and and in the hindsight, it is I mean, I guess I like so I I kinda, like, hadn't even really thought about it as an adult, but Jesus Christ as an adult. What are you doing, IBM? Why are you making Charlie Chaplin?
Speaker 1:How does it like, what was the logic for that? Can someone walk me through with it what their rationale would be
Speaker 2:for Charlie Chaplin?
Speaker 6:Listen. You
Speaker 7:guys need to stop mocking the Charlie Chaplin ads. No.
Speaker 2:No. Seriously, those are marked
Speaker 7:in gold And as like a 5 year old kid watching, you know, bunny rabbit ear TV and the ads in in the middle of Scooby Doo with Charlie Chaplin, I was begging my parents for an IBM PC.
Speaker 1:I do know. I feel the same way, dear. Look. I feel the same way. I mean, they are I I think of them as I mean, again, I didn't know that they were making reference to a movie character.
Speaker 1:I thought they just invented this own, like and then it was almost like a mister Bean feel to it. Like, this this character they created was kinda cartoonish
Speaker 4:and This IBM character.
Speaker 1:This IBM character. And, no, I agree. Like, look, I'm not denigrating it exactly. So Wait. It worked on the idea.
Speaker 1:I mean, it it it it it
Speaker 2:it it
Speaker 1:it worked on you know? And Well,
Speaker 2:did your parents buy you the thing?
Speaker 1:Well, I so I was extremely unusual in that I was the only kid I knew in 1983 who had an IBM VCX date. So because, there was an an ill formed thought in my father's brain that he was gonna start a software company. That did not go well. But he did spend the the he definitely spent spent the family inheritance or whatever on a computer that had no graphics card after all this. So So it worked.
Speaker 4:You're one of the 750,000. I was. I think that was that that was the the the the 1st year when they were talking about Compact just crushing it and selling 50, 55,000 PCs. And then they paused, and they said, and in the same year, IBM sold 750,000. Well and I They were just such a monster.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I did I mean, I learned to program with the I'm not sure
Speaker 5:if you call it the basic primer or the
Speaker 1:basic primer, but that was I mean, Charlie Chaplin sold that to me, basically, how I view it. I mean, that is so just in terms of that and clearly, Dan, it had the same impact for you, clearly. I mean, those those those ads, they were again, they were but I I just don't know from an adult perspective what an adult mind Dan, do you recall having a conversation with your parents and using Charlie Chaplin as an argument?
Speaker 7:Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And they were not convinced.
Speaker 5:I mean, we didn't get a
Speaker 7:computer until 1985, and then we had brought them to Macintosh. So
Speaker 1:Oh, you're one of those guys.
Speaker 5:I'm not worried because I'm like, oh
Speaker 1:my god. You were what were you the were you the kid with the GI Joe aircraft carrier too? I feel like there's a lot of overlap between the GI Joe aircraft carrier exactly and the Macintosh. I'm no. Listen.
Speaker 1:I'm not I'm not making the I the you know, those are just devoted parents. But the
Speaker 2:Hey. It's settled out. Like, this is just some class warfare thing about
Speaker 1:Oh. Oh. Look who's a Mac family. Look who's a Mac family, everybody. But
Speaker 2:so this this this takes you back in a lot of different ways. My parents got a free Mac Plus when they opened a bank account.
Speaker 5:What? Yep. What? This this is what What
Speaker 1:what what bank is this? It's like Chase Price Reserve or whatever?
Speaker 2:This was like Fleet Bank. I don't know. This I know that it's, like, crazy to think that, like, banks would have these giveaways, but, like, maybe they they had some minimum balance. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Adam, I know I know that you were telling the
Speaker 3:truth. I've heard of giving away accounters. The do you
Speaker 2:know what? They've I've I've confirmed this over the years.
Speaker 1:Okay. That's what I wanna ask. Have you gone back? In your meanwhile, your parents are like, shit. He still remembers that one.
Speaker 1:Like, we fed him that line to prevent us from ever having to buy an upgrade or think about a computer again. And he is, like, holding on to that one. Like, what just it's like, just stand by it. He'll forget it.
Speaker 2:I'll I'll just remind by the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know,
Speaker 7:I just wanna point out one thing. Like, the savings and loans sort of thing happened right around this time. So if we wanna figure out
Speaker 1:true. That's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They The fiduciary's Lesser known facts
Speaker 4:of the savings and loan scam.
Speaker 1:Yeah. When my parents opened an account at Silverado Savings and Loan, we got a free on domain frame frame. Like, didn't everybody at the time? You're right.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is the time when, like, we had, like, 10% interest rates.
Speaker 1:It is, no. It is true. It is a it's a very different era. So you got a free Mac Plus. Now with this what year is this?
Speaker 1:Car.
Speaker 3:Which are the
Speaker 2:so so our first Mac plus, we got 1986.
Speaker 1:That is
Speaker 5:and then after that
Speaker 1:one Wow.
Speaker 2:That that that was pretty early, especially because my folks didn't were were not computer professionals continue to Okay.
Speaker 1:So emphatically copy the the account because of the free Mac Plus?
Speaker 2:The so the the actually, the the first one they bought, the sec the they bought they got another Mac Plus that they were using for work in 19, 88. So I I was I was stretching a little bit, but that one they got for for the, bank account. Okay. I don't know if that how how much of a motivating factor that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I hope it was. Alright. So 88 so that it it's a little bit exactly, like, 86. It I feel the max were still
Speaker 2:very 86. We we had a Commodore 64 and, and then upgraded to a Mac plus.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a big upgrade.
Speaker 2:It was a big upgrade. It was it was incredible. It was incredible.
Speaker 1:Machine big up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. So so a 100% of my time, obviously. And then, and then but the one I I will always remember is the, you know, the image writer too was the printer that came with it that had the, perforated edges and, like, banner maker 2 or something like that, where you could print happy birthday or probably other messages, but it never came up. And, like, have all the different pieces of paper hooked together and just not separate the perforation.
Speaker 2:I think that was something that we're really missing from our
Speaker 1:modern machines. You are bringing me back to print shop in Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Remember remember print shop, the program print shop? Yes. And you would, you know, you'd be printing out something that would be like, you know, you got the dot matrix firm. Exactly. And you're you're printing out some galactic banner that's only gonna take you 3 and a half days to print?
Speaker 3:That's right. Hey hey, guys. The Berkeley banner program, it's still in Linux.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You just have to
Speaker 3:find you just have
Speaker 5:to find the right printer.
Speaker 1:Well, Tom, Print Shop was a PC and apparently, I think Mac 2, maybe, Adam. I'm not sure if it was on Mac. Yeah. Yeah. That allowed you to certainly, it was my first experience with, like, fonts, was print shop.
Speaker 1:You're like, there's a western greeting cards Right. All
Speaker 3:sorts of other stuff.
Speaker 1:Right. You bring me back to play like Rocky's boots.
Speaker 2:So if intersecting, though so from from the from the documentary, from Silicon Cowboys, I don't know if this stuck out for you folks, and this intersecting with, like, the Apple talk. But, you know, they ended with saying, hey, you know, if Compaq made an iPhone, it it would have worked better. Did did you guys catch catch this thing?
Speaker 1:Yes. And they I have to say this is all over the book too.
Speaker 5:Oh.
Speaker 1:And it is it's like I I I don't I think it cheapens the whole thing. It's like I
Speaker 3:do not do that.
Speaker 1:Every no one should feel an obligation to claim their role in history by connecting themselves to the iPhone or by claiming that if they hadn't existed, the iPhone wouldn't happen. It's like, the iPhone is not the pinnacle of human history.
Speaker 5:The same thing that you would have done.
Speaker 3:IPhone would have been rotary compatible.
Speaker 1:Oh, well played.
Speaker 4:Made a CDA, so it's like
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just do not feel that though I I mean, the the book in the book, like I said, tries to make this connection a lot. And I'm I'm not sure if that's what you were referring to in terms of, like, this desperation to be part of the the the deep history of the iPhone.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There was just this this well, you know, one of the one of the talking head interviews towards the end was was just talking about how, you know, sort of the fundamentals of the technology and then how the execution would have been better. Just like, okay. Enough. Just just take your wins.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean and and there are many of them. Right? I mean, and, ultimately, sort of ending in tears. But but just, like, for for the time that they were dominant, just that's the story.
Speaker 2:But then I mean, I I think that I I saw enough, both success and radiated hubris from my my time at at Sun. We say, you know, know, there was a time when Sun was talking was in serious talks to acquire Apple. And I think, Brian, you had the great line that we would have ended up with, like, the Mac OS 9 kernel running CDE as our desktop. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's a much more likely outcome than, like, the Solaris kernel, like, you know, underpinning that
Speaker 1:going on. Yeah. I feel it was a fair bet that we would take the worst of all companies on any acquisition. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you're not gonna go broke on on that bet that any acquisition will be bundled and we will take the absolute worst of both.
Speaker 1:Yes. Well, so and it is
Speaker 3:Speaking of acquisitions, you know, the later history of Compact.
Speaker 1:I thank you, Tom. Yeah. I was that's I was gonna get there too because I think we gotta talk. Unfortunately, you know, the movie ends when Canyon is fired, which is pretty crazy by Rosen. Right?
Speaker 1:The which is pretty amazing. And, Steve, did that send a show up your spine at all, just out of curiosity, is the CEO of a computer company? What are we talking about?
Speaker 4:That that the yeah. No. None none of that.
Speaker 1:No. Right. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Didn't But
Speaker 1:I didn't know
Speaker 4:but, yeah, they they they I think, Tom, you're I don't know which acquisition you were, thinking about, but I was I did not know they acquired Tandem, didn't know they acquired Deck. I mean, I knew they acquired Deck, but didn't really follow kinda where that went.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I guess the Deck was more personal to me because Sun kinda killed Deck, and then we can't contact bottom.
Speaker 1:And that was not a good acquisition. That was not a smart acquisition to add a go.
Speaker 7:To be fair here. I mean, you
Speaker 3:know, deck till deck.
Speaker 1:Deck till deck.
Speaker 3:Well, they got open VMS out of it. I mean, so
Speaker 1:And DEC DEC definitely killed DEC. It with DEC had way, way, way too many people at Deck to support that kind of revenue and just did not I it's a mystery to me why Compaq ultimately, I mean, Tandem makes maybe a little more sense. But I also don't think Eckert Pfeiffer, I don't think is impressive. And they didn't really make him out to be a villain in the movie, but, like, why not? Like, can't we actually I I don't know.
Speaker 1:I I I felt that, like, the later history of Compaq is this kinda sugar high of sales continuing to spike, but then, ultimately, it's the ruin of the company. And the the the company ultimately ceases to become an innovator, and I feel it's like it's I mean, I I don't know, Tom, what your take is, but my view on Compaq is, like, the last real innovations are around the the blade systems, which Compaq more or less pioneered, in the, I mean, they were making good machines in the mid nineties, but I think that was still honestly a holdover from when Canyon was there. And then by the time, you know, he's totally out. I feel the quality kind of plummets. And
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think management was out of touch with reality.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:The the engineers continued to crank out good x86 stuff and and really saved HP's ass after HP bought them.
Speaker 1:And, Steve, you were at Dell. Do you recall kind of competing with Compaq, HP, or was it oh, we had had they merged at that
Speaker 4:point. Yeah. They so, I mean, it was basically the the the server line at HP was still at its core Compact Systems and very high quality. That's kinda where the quality came from. I did appreciate a few callouts at the end there on some of back to back to marketing.
Speaker 4:Dell, I thought, had some pretty creative ads, which I know Sun then had even further creative ads taking Dell's knees out later. But, they had a frame up of on the left, you know, a Dell system that was appealing and then on the right, it was a Compact system that was appalling. And comparing the prices of the 2 and then they had, because CompactNow at this point was these systems were very, very expensive.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:And this was part of the controversy of of of Rod getting run out was not wanting to go down market. But, then they had top of the mark was the Dell system on the left and then top of the markup. And then top back on the right.
Speaker 1:So what I remember, Steve, from that era, like, Dell had, I thought, very good ads in that era. What I remember was
Speaker 4:And then Sun. Yes.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. I I
Speaker 5:would thought to be I I would
Speaker 1:thought it'd be Sun centric, you know. You don't have to be you don't have to be so sketchy. I the I remember Dell's ad, the the great Texas chainsaw laptop massacre, where they were comparing their prices to Compaq's prices on laptops, and they were just annihilating Compaq on price. I mean, it was were you getting, like it wasn't clear what the quality difference was, honestly, at that point between a Dell and a Compaq.
Speaker 3:Well, there is one point in the in the Nautilus Nautilus, I think, where, yeah, when Compaq was thinking of his works and they restricted the tech on it to go low margin. And it's very impressive maneuver that it survived that. And they took on that much more competitively.
Speaker 4:So the sun ad that I was particularly sensitive towards, was so we had a line of servers, the, the 28100 series that was or 27100 series that was a 2 u server and was just very, very hot. I mean, it ran hot, ran so hot, created a couple fires in data centers, which is always a good look. And, Sun's marketing team pounced right on that and, started running a series of ad campaigns, which would have, you know, Hades in the background and the Dell logo with horns coming out of it. And it would say, you know, boy, it's getting hotter than Dell in here. And just a bunch of, like, hotter hotter and Dell and hell references that, I mean, very effective campaign.
Speaker 4:Took the, you know, rather than the empathy today you'll see of, like, cloud infrastructure providers where someone has a data center fire and everyone's like, oh, god.
Speaker 1:Like, hug ops. Like, hashtag hug ops.
Speaker 4:Feel for them. Yeah. Hug ops. God, it. I never want you know, we all know what that means.
Speaker 1:Like, I
Speaker 4:mean, Sun
Speaker 5:is just like Burn,
Speaker 4:baby, burn. Yeah. Just kneecaps down. And we were losing customers left,
Speaker 3:right, and
Speaker 5:Well, so what I
Speaker 2:remember so first of all,
Speaker 1:I don't think anyone at Sun Marketing had would have even fantasized about hitting the mark so much inside of Dell. I just think we kind of assumed that Dell was ignoring those ads, but it was clearly not. Clearly, they at least somewhere inside of Dell, they they were resonating. The I remember the University of Buffalo bought a bunch of Dell systems, tried to power them on, and had so much draw that they browned out the city. Was the, what they anyway, that's what they told us in the kind of the Pravda issue inside of Sun.
Speaker 1:I don't even actually know if it was true or not. This is, like, this is the anti del propaganda that Adam and I grew up on. So for all I know, it's, you know, just exactly that.
Speaker 2:Bill also told us we had revenue. So
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. Oh, yeah. They were telling us all sorts of myths. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I'm not sure that those ads were that effective, Steve. Do you do you think
Speaker 4:I mean Oh, they were. Yeah. They were. The the whole rhyme I mean, I can tell you. The the rhymes with hell just stuck and was, it just was a good way for people to remember that Dell servers are you know, have a high likelihood of catching fire in your data center.
Speaker 4:And, it was it was pretty effective.
Speaker 1:You ended up on the cold face of that one, it sounds like.
Speaker 4:Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
Speaker 3:So speaking speaking of h h HPE and Compact, you know, they just relocated their headquarters to Houston. So that that's really a continuation of the Compact. Interesting.
Speaker 1:Yes. So That feels like that is a more appropriate place for them. I mean, I mean, I don't feel that they have been really a Silicon Valley company for a long, long, long time. I mean, I feel like HP has, sadly, had a pretty deep level, lost its way. I mean, there are I mean, clearly aspects of the old HP that are still alive.
Speaker 1:And there's no and definitely there's some great engineering inside of HP, but I feel like they're more at this point. Houston may be a better fit. Not to I'm not denigrating Houston. I should be clear. I get rid of everybody.
Speaker 1:Although, actually, speaking of Houston, Adam, do you remember talking to a customer of ours, Enron, who Yes. Who was being wooed by Compaq. Do you remember his tales of being wooed by Compaq?
Speaker 2:Oh, no. I don't.
Speaker 1:The end this is to this is where kinda like the animals were walking upright, honestly, where Compaq kind of really became like IBM in a lot of their sales tactics. And they were Steve, it was all the kind of, like, super high priced, you know, taking you to ball games and and not talking about technology at all and
Speaker 3:Just ball games.
Speaker 1:That that's real well.
Speaker 3:That
Speaker 1:a lot That's right. Oh, no. It was a lot more than ball games. And
Speaker 2:Extra innings ball games.
Speaker 1:Extra innings ball games. Exactly. They
Speaker 3:have stories about Compaq. I've heard from some sales guys, from the the German dude's time there.
Speaker 1:It it was quit and the and meanwhile, the this the customer that we were talking with is complaining about the fact that he's got an entire data center that has, rebooted. I think due to a power failure, and it was all waiting for someone to press f one to continue. So literally, he had no way of remote doing any you have to have someone to have keyboard plug in plugging in all these servers, so he was very dismayed by it. But I think it's clearly Compaq's sales, motion looked a lot more like an IBM sales motion
Speaker 5:at the end. I don't know, Steve, if that if that fits
Speaker 1:your experience for just keeping with Compaq or not.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I didn't really see they they were selling mostly through the channel, so it was not often that we would run into them directly. But, But, but, yeah, wouldn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 1:But so I think it again, the the New York Times review of the just, Tom, to your earlier point, the New York Times review of this documentary is, like, hey. You know, there's another interesting documentary to be done on what happened after Canyon. But I I don't know. I think it may be less interesting. I think that this part of the history is actually more interesting.
Speaker 1:I thought it was an amazing part of the history anyway.
Speaker 4:Definitely worth a watch. I mean, it's it's not it's just over an hour, fast paced. I mean, at least speaking for myself, knew very little of Compact's RISE and, just how how important they were in the history of personal computers. So strongly recommended.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Strongly recommended. And I'm gonna I I think I'm gonna give you to another of Tandem quite a bit. And the history of Tandem is really interesting. And looks, Steve, definitely, very I'm
Speaker 4:definitely gonna watch that because, there it was I'm not sure if it was lore or reality because no one made it down to the data center to find out. But, in the so the Dell sales organization, everybody operated off of this. It was, you know, effectively a green screen, but it was blue and red and yellow themed colors. And this was the sales this was the Dell order management system doms. And they could not rip this out of the hands of the entire field team and and the inside team.
Speaker 4:They kept trying to, like, flip it over to a web UI, and everybody just knew how to do their business off of function keys, you know. And f 2 to place an order, f 7 to look at shipping details, like so this was so hardwired in the sales organization's heads that they would just revolt every time Dell would try and make an IT change, which was effectively to get rid of this $7,000,000 iceberg sitting in the data center, this tandem that they had. And they were so reliant upon it that they had a tandem literally shrink wrapped just sitting on the on the data center floor in the event that that first one ever went out. And, so Tandem has always been in Dell lore, at least from from the sales organization's perspective, because of its stranglehold on the, the Dell field team. But it'd be great to great to see the history.
Speaker 1:The history is really, really interesting. Jimmy Trebek is a super interesting character. I don't know if Tom, did you have any any interaction with Jimmy Trebek at all? I mean, very iconoclastic, engineer. And the thing that I didn't realize is that Tandem made KP.
Speaker 1:KP, if it weren't for Tandem, Kleiner Perkins would not have risen as a fee zebra. They were basic they basically went all in Tandem, and Tandem had an outsized result. And that's why and so so, they've got extensive interviews with a bunch of the KP
Speaker 3:So I should mention that that one of my infinite array of brothers worked with Tandem as well as a sister-in-law. So I didn't send that much attention to all.
Speaker 1:I I know. I feel like this is the right, I know. It sounds like look. It it's only, like, a sibling. So, like, if I paid attention to all of the computer companies that all my siblings worked at, like, I never get anything done.
Speaker 1:So you know? But, that's another another good one to watch. So we'll put that one in in the show notes. Alright. Any, any closing thoughts of those, Steve, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1:Tom, as always, Jeff, Dan, Jason, and Adam, thanks as always. Any, any parting parting words of wisdom, Adam?
Speaker 2:Just the the building on compatibility, like building system software, building systems hardware, it it definitely, one of the first instances I've seen, definitely worth worth a watch.
Speaker 1:Definitely worth a watch. Alright. Alright. Thanks, everyone. We will see you next Monday.
Speaker 1:I think we're gonna keep doing this. We're having fun. So hope you're having fun too. We've recorded this. We'll put the recording out there.
Speaker 3:Put the show notes out there too.
Speaker 1:And we'll we'll see you next time. Adios.
Speaker 2:See you. Thanks, everybody.
Speaker 1:See you.
Speaker 2:Thanks.