Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Dell Technologies Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stock bull who wrote (152950)	2/3/2000 1:08:00 PM
From: rudedog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176387

SB - OT Yes, I think Roberts was originally from Georgia and went back there in the mid-80s, someone told me he is a well-regarded family physician. There is a mistaken notion that products like the MITS Altair were the first microprocessor-based computers. In reality they were just the first to create one which was affordable to the hobbyist. By 1975 I had a company which was building industrial controllers around a general-purpose microprocessor-based design, but system prices were targeted at PDP-8 levels - around $10K - which in 1975 was a lot of money. Those systems were initially based around Intel's 8008 but by the time the 8080 came out, there were other competitors which, for dedicated use, produced systems at a lower cost. We shifted from 8008 to Motorola 6800 which had a more integrated chipset - then later to the 6502 (we used the Rockwell part in a couple of its variations). Those industrial systems were very rugged - so rugged that a 1978 CMOS design we did for GM is still in use at several GM plants after more than 20 years. Our industrial controllers were eventually supplanted by "programmable logic controllers" or PLCs which were more standardized and executed relay logic - these replaced actual relay systems wholesale in the 80s. By that time I had sold the original company and was in the minicomputer world...