Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would youchoose?

[Bob Retelle <bobr1@provide.net>]

On 31 Jul 2001 05:36:26 GMT, wbdesnoy@acs5.acs.ucalgary.ca (Byron
Desnoyers Winmill) wrote:

>Bob Retelle (bobr1@provide.net) wrote:
>: MY point is that NO ONE WILL BUY ONE if it has half the features and
>: runs at one tenth the speed of a comparably priced system ALREADY on
>: the market.
>
>Bob, you are missing the point.

Actually that's not entirely true.

This thread has split into several directions from the original
question of what a $300 "home computer" would look like.

Some of the threads I've stayed out of, since I really don't have any
experience with the esoteric CPUs that have been proposed (other than
knowing that they ARE esoteric).

Other threads have pointed out that successful, well appointed $300
computers already do exist, with no necessity of leaving out CD-ROM
drives or I/O ports as the original post suggested.  Those I've
participated in, my response was one of the first ones actually, with
the comment that I just bought a very nice, new PC for less than the
suggested $300 price point, with nothing left out to cut corners.

More threads have questioned what the potential market for the
proposed new system would be.  This is where my questions about the
marketability of a system like this have fallen.    Unless the
proposed audience is only the handful of people participating in this
discussion, then the question of the market for any product has to be
addressed.

(Yes, I know this is all hypothetical, but it's still a valid
question)

> The point is to play with an idea.  The
>underlying question is: if we could create our own computer, how would be
>build it?  The price point is there so that we don't build something, like
>a quad processor Pentium IV, or what be it.
>

Oh, I'm very familiar with the idea of kicking around concepts- the
question comes up on a regular basis in the Atari newsgroups.  It's
usually phrased something like "What CPU would you like to see in a
new Atari ST clone?"    And it goes back and forth, much like a lot of
this discussion has, with no one really ever believing it really could
happen, but it's just fun to talk about.

>It does not matter whether this machine will sell, because it is only an
>idea.  Sometimes ideas are good, and sometimes ideas are bad.  There is no
>sole judge of quality and, if there were, it certainly wouldn't be on
>marketability. 

Well, the original post presented the idea with a definite slant
toward the marketability question.

Why propose leaving out such features as a CD-ROM drive to cut corners
down to the $300 point if marketability wasn't an issue?

The original question was presented as if a new "hackers" computer
might be a viable product, if only the cost could be contained to a
reasonable level, similar to the "good old" machines we used to tinker
with.

>In this day in age, the Apple II, Amstrad, Amiga, and Atari
>have very limited markets.

I would say they have ZERO market, but there are those among us who
might get upset at that.

People still buy wax cylinders for Edison phonographs but that doesn't
mean there's a viable market for them.

>That does not mean that these machines were bad
>ideas.  It certainly does not mean that we who use them have bad ideas.
>

Definitely not.   The current situation (for anything) doesn't change
the history attached to anything.

The Apple computer was groundbreaking.  It brought commercial success
to the brand new microcomputer world truly for the first time.  All
the earlier attempts were close, but no cigar.

Atari was the most technologically advanced computer of its time.
It's coprocessor chip set was far and away better than anything
available when it came out.   The fact that Atari, Inc, and Atari Corp
couldn't figure out what to do with it doesn't take anything away from
the computer itself.

The Commodore 64 was THE most successful microcomputer of ITS day. It
was the best selling computer in the entire world, at that time.  

The TRS-80 was a solid, well marketed system.  It was headed in the
right direction with its business applications.  You could buy one in
a million Radio Shacks.

All of these were good ideas, at the time.

You'd have to be crazy to try to sell any one of them now.

>And even if sales were an issue, I'm sick and tired of this damn "you must
>own the market to be successful" mentality.

"Owning the market" is an unusual situation.  Generally there are
several competitors, each with its own market share. 

The auto industry has many players, but they all provide a
"standardized platform".  When you buy a car, you get the same four
wheels, the same steering configuration, much the same control
mechanism.  There are variations, of course, but the basic product is
built around a standardized platform.

The computer industry has standardized on a platform as well.  

> To pick on Commodore and Atari:
>these companies were split up, sold off, and bought by other firms.  Does
>that mean that the Amiga or Atari ST were unsuccessful.

Those are not the reasons why the Amiga and ST were unsuccessful, they
are the result of the products being unsuccessful.  The companies
might have survived if the products had been successful and had sold
well.

> Apple's marketshare
>is nowhere near 10% (let alone the 90% claimed for M$).  Does that mean that
>Apple is a failure?  Apple is almost 25 years old.

That makes Apple far more of a success than any of the other companies
mentioned.  Those other companies are all dead.

Simply by surviving for 25 years, Apple has succeeded.

Apple does that by selling products people want to buy.  They've had
failures, sure, but they generally learn from them and bring out other
products that are more successful.

> Is Sun a failure, by the
>same logic?  Of course not.

Sun has a very good position in its chosen marketplace.  It too sells
products people want to buy for their specialized needs.  In that
respect, Sun is very successful in its market.

> It is absurd.  If I can make a living while
>serving a few hundred clients, I would consider myself a success.  If I could
>do that with my 68k proposal.  And, as I pointed out, similar machines which
>are targeted to a limited market already exist in the sub-$300 price range.
>
>Yes, 68k and Z80 based computers are still made.  A tenth of the power?
>Heck, I'll bet that the 68000 is a lot slower than that.  Ditto for the Z80
>based machines.
>
>The point is: these machines are not targeted at the same market that
>Windows, or MacOS, or any other entertainment/office platform is targeted
>at.  The TI-89 is designed as a calculator, and the design is directed
>towards portability and the entry of mathematical expressions.  But don't
>be fooled, this is a computer as powerful as an Atari ST.  It is routinely
>programmed to serve other purposes (assembly, C cross compilers, etc.).
>
>Does TI sell millions of '89s every year?  That is doubtful.  They offer
>about a half a dozen different models (again, some are Z80 based and are
>just as programmable).  HP is probably their biggest competitor, in a
>similarly small market -- and there are others.  Are any of these companies
>or product lines a failure as a result.

The definition of success or failure depends on many things.
Obviously both TI and HP consider some of their products to be
successful since they continue to sell them and to introduce more
models.  Other products are dropped from the product mix.

One thing you can be sure of though, if no one bought a TI calculator
model, it wouldn't last long in the marketplace.

It wouldn't matter what features it had, or what CPU it was running,
or how loyal the people who might have bought one felt about it.  If
it didn't sell, it would be dropped.

And they certainly wouldn't introduce a new model unless they felt it
WOULD sell, and they had researched the marketplace to be sure.

My questions about the intended market for the "$300 Hackers'
Computer" are along the same lines. 
>
>If you want to by your dime-a-million VCR's and Wintel computers, be my
>guest.  If you think that our discussions are illconceived, so be it.  But
>if you are more interested in tearing our designs apart than contributing
>construtively, I suggest you shut your mouth, add this thread to your kill
>file, and forget this little band of crazies exist.

Like I said, discussions like this can be interesting and can expose a
lot of people to concepts they might not have thought of otherwise.

But part of discussing what might make a successful new computer has
to be a discussion of what made earlier attempts fail.

As much as I loved my Atari 800, I know why it disappeared from the
stores, and why my Commodore 64 fell from being the most successful
computer in the world to a $5 thrift store white elephant.  And, I
know why the other computers I have now have succeeded.

>
>Good night, and thanks for puting me in a foul mood,
>Byron.

Sorry about that-  unfortunately that's sometimes part of being
"devil's advocate".


BobR