tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (10/17/88)
There's been some questions which boil down to, "Hey Steve, how can you sell
RAM so fucking cheap?" It's a good question; the most likely answer is in
the relationship with IBM. IBM has the only functioning 1-megabit chip
production operation in the United States. Until now, it's been keeping
all thgose luscious little chips to itself, but you know Jobs got something
pretty fine in return for the interface package and for cooperating with an
old ideological enemy. A lot of people have been asking why he would sell
his soul to the three initial corporation; cheap RAM in today's market is
the best candidate I've heard yet.
However, this is only a speculation, and if you repeat it as fact, you're a
worthless boob.
Special bonus! From the Sunday 16 Oct 88 San Francisco Examiner/Chronicle,
written by Louis Trager of the Examiner staff:
"When the select at Davies Symphony Hall first gazed upon the Next Inc.
computer last week, it could have stared back. Steve Jobs' first choice to
design his comeback, do-or-die, revolutionary bean counter was an anonymous
European firm. Here's how Jobs described its proposal at Nextravaganza:
'It was in the shape of a human head, with (circuit) boards plugged into
the back of the skull.' Audience: groan. Jobs turned for help, naturally,
toward Campbell. There he found Hartmut Esslinger of Frogdesign Inc. (The
firm prefers its name all in lowercase letters. Next prefers its X and T
capitalized. We'd prefer our name in lights in Vegas.) Esslinger knew what
the design wouldn't look like. 'To make a computer in the shape of a head
is to make a fake of a human being,' he says. 'It can be funny. But it's
insulting to the user. A computer can never replace a human being.' His
dark gray cube was modeled on the Kaaba, a sacred building at Mecca's Great
Mosque. 'If you do a cube, the color of the cube is dark. Mysterious,'
he says. Fine, but how will the techies bow toward Next HQ in Palo Alto
five times a day?"
--
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"I've got troubles of my own, and you can't help me out.
So take your meditations and your preparations and ram it up yer snout!"
- Frank Zappa, "Kozmik Debris"