Hi rudedog; I bought a car at the fancy used car store in
Bellevue where the MSFT millionaires shop (Park Place
Motors (sp?)).
I looked over the loan guys shoulder while he was typing up
the bill of sale, license &c. He was running straight DOS,
no windows. The bill printed on an ancient impact printer.
Sounded like a "Gorilla GX-80". :)
I just about fell out of my chair.
I asked the guy whether they were considering upgrading
to a newer machine, (they would be able to print nicer price
sheets, for instance,) and he said "not a chance" as he
aligned the form (from memory) about 5/8 of an inch out of
the dot matrix printer in order to get the print to match the
preprinted form. This was data he had just entered on
the computer.
He could have used a ball point pen, as the printer made
7 copies, and it would have been more readable.
I was amazed.
I am sure you are right on what it is businesses are
running on right now. High tech is different.
From having worked in 6 very small high tech companies,
I have concluded that most of them go under cause they
are really badly run. The owners start them up to either
make a quick buck or because they have delusions
of grandeur. The majority of the owner really have no
idea how to produce a product at low cost or that even
works. Of course they buy expensive computers, they
do everything large. Then they run out of money and
go broke. These comments are not meant to apply
to DELL, which (currently) makes money hand over foot,
just to the average failing high tech company.
-- Carl |
