Why Did Tandy stop making computers
Bobby Rutgers
I have a tandy 2500sx and i was wondering why tandy stopped the production
of there computers if they would have kept going the would probably be at
the 450 Mhz systems now. I have two other tandy systems not including almost
everyone in my family had there own tandy computer but no-one uses them now
because of the newer systems.
Please reply to this or e-mail me at bob...@mnsi.net
Tim Mallery
The sold the computer factories to AST (now owned by Samsung). They
sold the circuit board factories to an Indian company.
scoobydoo
--
____________________
Scoobydoo :-)
Please reply to GROUP
Tim Mallery wrote in message <36b73ae...@news.telenet.net>...
Frank Durda IV
: I have a tandy 2500sx and i was wondering why tandy stopped the production
After a combination of two or three failed product launches and large losses,
Tandy elected to spin-off its electronics/manufacturing divisions into a
separate company. On looking at the books of the proposed company, they
decided it would die instantly if left on its own, so they pulled-back the
parts they wanted to keep and sold the rest to a variety of companies.
AST, originally approached by Tandy to provide Tandys factories with work
(they had excess capacity after losing the Digital Equipment Corp business
they had had for five years), and AST ended-up being convinced to buy several
of the Tandy factories, the Tandy R&D department and related intellectual
property.
The marketing management AST picked-up from Tandy (same guys that came up
with those products that failed so badly and started Tandys troubles) were
hired (and publicly hyped) by AST, and were put in high positions. In
short order (of course), they promptly ran AST into the ground by doing
exactly the same stupid stuff they had been doing at Tandy. AST had to
find money to cover a mountain of useless inventory they could not sell, and
obtained loans for stock (translation: ownership) from Samsung, with
Samsung eventually taking over after enough debt was piled-up.
However, Samsung knows even less about making PCs for the US retail market
than it does about making bridges stay up, and Samsung under AST continued its
losing ways, even though the ex-Tandy marketing boneheads bailed before
Samsung completely took over. ASTs market share became almost invisible.
In December of 1998, I received a note from some of the last Fort Worth AST
workers reporting that apart from those making stuff under a fulfillment
deal with other companies, everyone else had been let go and the Koreans
were headed back to Korea.
In January 1999, a small article appeared in the Fort Worth Star Telegram
reporting that Samsung had sold the AST name and the AST intellectual rights
to a group led by the former CEO of Packard Bell, who planned to sell PCs
under the AST name, but essentially a different and unrelated company.
The marketing minds that wrecked Tandy Computers and then AST Computers?
They now reside at Gateway 2000 and Compaq, with the Compaq crowd taking a
detour through Digital Equipment Corp from 1995 through 1998, where they
helped destroy that company, and showed up publicly in the deal to sell the
Alpha processor design to the direct competition, Intel. These giants of
the botch were last seen (post Compaq buying DEC deal) running the Compaq
storage products division.
I'd be dumping those Compaq and Gateway shares about now. These guys have
the knack.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"The Knights who say "LETNi"
<uhclem.feb99%nemesis.lonestar.org> | demand... A SEGMENT REGISTER!!!"
|"A what?"
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th |"LETNi! LETNi! LETNi!" - 1983
Copr. 1999, ask before reprinting.
Tim Mann
Frank Durda IV <uhclem...@nemesis.lonestar.org> wrote:
>The marketing minds that wrecked Tandy Computers and then AST Computers?
>They now reside at Gateway 2000 and Compaq, with the Compaq crowd taking a
>detour through Digital Equipment Corp from 1995 through 1998, where they
>helped destroy that company, and showed up publicly in the deal to sell the
>Alpha processor design to the direct competition, Intel. These giants of
>the botch were last seen (post Compaq buying DEC deal) running the Compaq
>storage products division.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
I believe the source of Frank's persistent mistaken impression on this
point is that the semiconductor manufacturing plant that Digital used
to own, where all Alphas were then made, was sold to Intel. Intel now
makes some Alphas there for us under contract, while some Alphas are
made for us by other manufacturers.
Digital (now Compaq) kept the Alpha processor design, the intellectual
property rights, and the design teams. The design teams are still
hard at work designing future generations of the Alpha. In fact,
they're hiring. Know any top-notch processor designers?
I'd be interested to hear the names of these folks that have wrecked
so many computer companies. I think at least one may already have
left Compaq shortly after the acquisition of Digital, but I'm not
really sure who Frank is referring to.
--Tim
--
Tim Mann <ma...@pa.dec.com>, Compaq Systems Research Center
http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/
SirThomas
>Tandy elected to spin-off its electronics/manufacturing divisions into a
>separate company.
Which ones are you referring to?
Frank Durda IV
Tim Mann (ma...@src.dec.com) wrote:
: The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
: <he repeats>
: I believe the source of Frank's persistent mistaken impression on this
: point is that the semiconductor manufacturing plant that Digital used
: to own, where all Alphas were then made, was sold to Intel. Intel now
: makes some Alphas there for us under contract, while some Alphas are
: made for us by other manufacturers.
(I vaguely recall this coming up exactly once before. Hardly "persistent".
Here is why I said what I said:)
My understanding is based on the employees of Compaq, you know, the ones who
used to work for Digital, who have repeatedly said that fab AND design *NOW*
live in the hands of Intel, and that the design transfer was something Compaq
did in adjusting "battle lines" right after they took over DEC.
The people saying this are local field support staffers, as well as software
types in Nashua (and beyond) giving this story. True? Perhaps not. But
it's been pretty consistent from all sources.
If you go back a few more months, Intel, because of fear of a bad FTC ruling,
agreed to license Alpha to others. IBM was originally approached but Samsung
ended-up getting the deal.
If DECs/Compaqs own employees don't know the Alphas true disposition, how are
the people who own them (and are paranoid to buy them in the future) supposed
to know? I personally own two Alpha-based systems, and my company owns about
20 CPUs worth of Alpha systems.
The question of who owns the Alpha isn't the main reason we may not buy Alpha
in future (persistent OS bugs that remain unresolved after two full years
of open tickets on the same problem if the main killer of a reason), but the
question of Alpha no longer being the Plan A machine at Compaq/DEC is somewhat
of a worry.
The fact that Compaq was flushing new and working Alpha Multia systems
for $99 QTY 1 (somewhat below original list) a few months ago certainly looks
like a clearing of an unwanted system from the shelves.
: I'd be interested to hear the names of these folks that have wrecked
: so many computer companies.
Here are the initials of the one that helped DEC go to the rocks: H. E.
You'll find the full name in the press stories on the "sale" of the Alpha
to Intel, such as the ones in PC Week, where he is quoted as saying stuff
like how the sale of the Alpha to Intel is a win-win, getting DEC out of
the lawsuit (he probably suggested that suit in the first place - sounds
like him, particularly after being on the receiving end of TI lawsuits for
years at Tandy & AST), and allowing Intel to obtain technology that should
speed delivery of Merced, as well as Intel getting a promise for development
of a Digital UNIX (or whatever it is called this weel) release for Merced.
As you might guess, this guy was and always will be a big Wintel fan/supporter
and from the news story, it sure sounds like the end result of the deal was
that Alpha was being sacrified to help Intel get Merced off the rocks.
(Funny, when AST hired him, their execs were quoted as saying that H.E. was
the "best part of the deal" when they bought Tandys computer operations.
It probably was... from Tandys point of view.)
Ah, I found some of the articles:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/1027/31ealpha.html
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/1027/28areax.html
Yes, at the time these were written, Digital kept the Alpha design rights,
but that Intel has production authority, with the bulk of the articles
dwelling on this point. The ownership of the Alpha design is covered in one
sentence, but remember these were written well before Compaq came on the
scene, far before the supposed transfer of the design by Compaq to Intel.
Unfortunately, Compaqs invisible public support for the Alpha solidifies the
perception that Alpha isn't theirs to support. The renaming of the Digital
UNIX (the only native Alpha OS really left) in the past few days makes one
wonder further. Will Steele (Digital UNIX 5.0) be native for the Merced
platform, with a "oh, yeah we should do something for the orphans" port to
Alpha sometime later? Those of us with support needs on DU will have to wait
and see.
Meanwhile, how come Samsung brought out 700MHz Alphas first and has indicated
when they expect 900MHz or 1GHz parts to be available, yet nothing has been
heard from DEC/Compaq? I've got some 2100s and 4100s that could use some
CPU upgrades...
Yeah, clearly someone at DEC/Compaq is still doing palcode updates and
related install floppies (was the Cactus really necessary to Compaqize the
latest updates?), but I don't see any new processor designs here.
Only at Samsung.
My apologies for this headed-off-topic post, but it seemed prudent.
Email works.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"I love the XYZ-57, powered by
<uhclem.feb%nemesis.lonestar.org> | the new Letnium-III processor.
| It's always reporting back to
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th | Bill about my activities, so
Copr. 1999, ask before reprinting. I'm never lonely."
"Letnium", "Letni", and "Inside Letni" are trademarks of FDIV Engineering
Frank Durda IV
: >Tandy elected to spin-off its electronics/manufacturing divisions into a
: >separate company.
SirThomas (sirt...@aol.com) wrote:
: Which ones are you referring to?
Digital Compact Cassette (DCC)
Tandy got exclusive North American manufacturing rights then helped the RIAA
ram through Congress the Home Recording Act of 1992, with John Roach
testifying in a Senate hearing that Americans would happily pay a tax on
blank media in exchange for high quality recordings. DCC died with
nationwide sales in the thousands (but the tax lives on and is about to get
applied to blank CD media). DCC didn't go anywhere. Philips still got
royalties and payments for the DCC design regardless of volume shipped.
Known losses to Tandy exceeded 90 million.
VIS (Video Information System),
or as one reviewer called it "Virtually Impossible to Sell". VIS came with
Modular Windows, and after its debacle, Microsoft denied Modular Windows was
a real product, claiming that at best it was only a concept, which is now
sold as Windows CE. Christmas 1992 sales for VIS nationwide was 255 units
TOTAL, despite having at least two units in all 7,000 stores. January 1993
sales were negative. By the end of February 1993, VIS units were on sale
for $399, about $45 below manufacturing cost. They were finally seen on
Home Shopping club and other places for $99 with 30 software titles.
We knew we were in trouble when Tandy Computer Merchandising spent months
coming up with a name for the VIS product, and the focus groups hated all the
choices they came with (we did too), and so the "Merchies" (as I used to call
them) picked the one name that every one of the groups hated the most and
consistently ranked as the worst name offered, VIS, a name Tandy had used
twice before for earlier products. Even then, Tandy ran into trademark
problems. Seem Tandy was infringing on the name VIS all along, as well as on
the phrase "Video Information System", but the lawyers said that if Tandy
used them together, ie "VIS - Video Information System", this made it a
new and trademarkable thing and Tandy would not get sued. Yes, these guys
really were nuts.
Known losses to Tandy on VIS exceeded 75 million, mostly in the form of
unusable/unsellable inventory of built and not yet-built VIS systems and
software. Tandy had ordered parts for over 40,000 units. Many third-party
software developers lost their shirts because of the unrecovered development
costs of making products for VIS and then having them sit in stores unsold.
Sensation! (first year model)
This was a half-success, half-failure. Although it sold reasonably well,
it quickly became an albatross because of an inability to upgrade almost
EVERYTHING in the unit, and the fact that the sound system was based on
Adlib Gold, but Adlib went out of business weeks before Sensation was
released, leaving Tandy with a machine that supported an abandoned audio
standard. Meanwhile, Tandys buyers were busily filling store shelves with
"Soundblaster compatible" games that would not run on the Sensation (they
didn't know there was a difference between SoundBlaster and Adlib until
it finally registered in November of 1992), and the Sensation could not be
upgraded by sticking a SoundBlaster card in it. Apart from running this
386-mode software emulation of a SoundBlaster that was developed in a
panic during the end of 1992 and early 1993, the emulator gave you some of
the SoundBlaster capabilities, but not enough for some games. Chuck Yaegar
(as one example) sounded like he was on Helium. Some software vendors
were bribed to produced special Sensation versions of their games to
solve part of the software title problem.
When support, returns and retrofits (like the rush development of the sound
system emulation), Sensation was revenue neutral at best, and declining
the longer we made the suckers.
This is the reason the Sensation II was incredibly upgradable, with
essentially nothing on the motherboard, and what was on the motherboard could
be completely disabled/bypassed. Even the Tandy-unique power supplies got
dropped because of the over-reaction to the closed Sensation I hardware.
- - - - - - - - - -
All three of these products were in the stores hoping to be bought during
Christmas of 1992, all were abandoned on January 16th, 1993, when a Tandy
board of directors meeting decided to take control of the situation. Because
there was no replacement multimedia computer for Radio Shack to sell,
Sensation continued to be manufactured until Sensation II could be put into
production, and then Sensation II was delayed until existing inventories of
Sensation I could be sold. VIS and DCC manufacturing was stopped in January
of 1993 with half-completed units pushed off the assembly line into the waste
bin. The spin-off had begun.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"I'll huff and I'll puff, and
<uhclem.feb99%nemesis.lonestar.org> | I'll get promoted."
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th | - Old management saying.
Anthony Marchini
Frank
I have to say, this stuff is great. You should write this all down, put in
some reasearch and write a book. (that is, if you haven't already)
Anthony Marchini
Aron Eisenpress
Thanks for the fascinating (as always) posts!
As I've been working with some of the GRiD/Tandy laptops, I've been noticing
what look to be service parts (primarily LCDs and motherboards) showing up
cheaply recently. The LCDs in particular have AX- and NX- part numbers
which look like those in the Tandy support parts listings (in one case
where I was actually able to figure out what the LCD was for, the part
number was in fact the same). Is Tandy or AST dumping old service parts,
and if so where can I get more :-) ?
-------
-- Aron Eisenpress, City U of NY / Computing & Information Services
(email: af...@cunyvm.cuny.edu)
Tim Mann
correct some of the misinformation here.
In article <F6M6v...@nemesis.lonestar.org>,
Frank Durda IV <uhclem...@nemesis.lonestar.org> wrote:
>
>Tim Mann (ma...@src.dec.com) wrote:
>: The Alpha processor design was not sold to Intel.
>: <he repeats>
>
>: I believe the source of Frank's persistent mistaken impression on this
>: point is that the semiconductor manufacturing plant that Digital used
>: to own, where all Alphas were then made, was sold to Intel. Intel now
>: makes some Alphas there for us under contract, while some Alphas are
>: made for us by other manufacturers.
>
>(I vaguely recall this coming up exactly once before. Hardly "persistent".
> Here is why I said what I said:)
>
>My understanding is based on the employees of Compaq, you know, the ones who
>used to work for Digital, who have repeatedly said that fab AND design *NOW*
>live in the hands of Intel, and that the design transfer was something Compaq
>did in adjusting "battle lines" right after they took over DEC.
That is absolutely false; it has no basis in fact whatsoever. If
there are Compaq employees who think that, they are very seriously
mistaken. The intellectual property rights to the Alpha architecture
and designs remain with Compaq; they were not transferred to Intel
*either* at the time of the Intel patent infringement settlement *or*
at the time of the acquisition of Digital by Compaq (or at any other
time!).
You might have noticed that I work for Compaq (and used to work for
Digital) too. I am working directly with some of the folks on the
team that is designing one of the future generations of the Alpha, and
so are a number of my colleagues here at SRC. We, and they, work for
Compaq, not Intel.
>The people saying this are local field support staffers, as well as software
>types in Nashua (and beyond) giving this story.
People in *Nashua* think that we don't own the Alpha architecture any
more while people right down the road in Shrewsbury are still
designing them? Yikes!! I'm sure these folks' management would very
much like to straighten them out if they are really that confused.
Perhaps you are just mistaken about what they are actually saying, though.
>True? Perhaps not. But
>it's been pretty consistent from all sources.
Do I count as a source? You have a pretty weird collection of sources
if they all tell you this 100% wrong story.
Instead of relying on word of mouth, you might check our corporate Web
pages. http://www.digital.com/alphaoem/ is one place to look.
>If you go back a few more months, Intel, because of fear of a bad FTC ruling,
>agreed to license Alpha to others. IBM was originally approached but Samsung
>ended-up getting the deal.
Intel does not own Alpha and therefore does not have the right to
license it to others. There is some truth behind this garbled
statement, however: as I understand it, the FTC wanted to make sure
that Intel was not going to be the *sole* licensed manufacturer of
Alphas, since that would give them too much power. Digital wanted to
have other manufacturing partners anyway, and never wanted to lock
itself into Intel as the sole manufacturer, so that was fine with us.
We didn't need the FTC to tell us that, but they did anyway. Right
now Intel and Samsung are making Alpha chips for us; we've negotiated
with other chip makers in the past and will continue to do so in the
future, looking for the best deals and for the best fit between
our designs and their manufacturing processes.
>If DECs/Compaqs own employees don't know the Alphas true disposition, how are
>the people who own them (and are paranoid to buy them in the future) supposed
>to know? I personally own two Alpha-based systems, and my company owns about
>20 CPUs worth of Alpha systems.
That is certainly distressing. I wouldn't be bothered so much if the
Compaq classic employees were still confused, but for Compaq employees
who came from Digital to be confused is inexcusable.
>The question of who owns the Alpha isn't the main reason we may not buy Alpha
>in future (persistent OS bugs that remain unresolved after two full years
>of open tickets on the same problem if the main killer of a reason), but the
>question of Alpha no longer being the Plan A machine at Compaq/DEC is somewhat
>of a worry.
The merged Compaq is a big company with a lot of different product
lines. There is no one "Plan A machine." Alphas bring in a lot of
revenue and show no signs of going away.
>The fact that Compaq was flushing new and working Alpha Multia systems
>for $99 QTY 1 (somewhat below original list) a few months ago certainly looks
>like a clearing of an unwanted system from the shelves.
Multias (also known as UDBs) are obsolete and were never very good
machines. They use a 166 MHz Alpha 21066, which is a cost-reduced
version of a chip (21064) that is now two full generations behind.
Linux runs on them, so this $99 deal might be great for Linux
developers to make sure their software is 64-bit clean, but they
aren't very fast. So yes, this price is definitely clearing an
unwanted system from the shelves.
>: I'd be interested to hear the names of these folks that have wrecked
>: so many computer companies.
>
>Here are the initials of the one that helped DEC go to the rocks: H. E.
>You'll find the full name in the press stories on the "sale" of the Alpha
>to Intel, such as the ones in PC Week, where he is quoted as saying stuff
>like how the sale of the Alpha to Intel is a win-win, getting DEC out of
>the lawsuit (he probably suggested that suit in the first place - sounds
>like him, particularly after being on the receiving end of TI lawsuits for
>years at Tandy & AST), and allowing Intel to obtain technology that should
>speed delivery of Merced, as well as Intel getting a promise for development
>of a Digital UNIX (or whatever it is called this weel) release for Merced.
>As you might guess, this guy was and always will be a big Wintel fan/supporter
Thanks for that info... I'll keep an eye open to see what he does.
>and from the news story, it sure sounds like the end result of the deal was
>that Alpha was being sacrified to help Intel get Merced off the rocks.
The press was very confused back then. You'll probably find a lot of
stories from back then that incorrectly said Alpha was going to Intel
lock stock and barrel, and even the ones that got their facts right
were predicting gloom and doom for Alpha. Journalists love to tell
you that the sky is falling.
>(Funny, when AST hired him, their execs were quoted as saying that H.E. was
> the "best part of the deal" when they bought Tandys computer operations.
> It probably was... from Tandys point of view.)
>
>Ah, I found some of the articles:
> http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/1027/31ealpha.html
> http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/1027/28areax.html
>
>Yes, at the time these were written, Digital kept the Alpha design rights,
>but that Intel has production authority, with the bulk of the articles
>dwelling on this point. The ownership of the Alpha design is covered in one
>sentence, but remember these were written well before Compaq came on the
>scene, far before the supposed transfer of the design by Compaq to Intel.
As I said, this supposed transfer never happened.
>Unfortunately, Compaqs invisible public support for the Alpha solidifies the
>perception that Alpha isn't theirs to support.
It would be great to hear more public support for Alpha from Compaq
upper management, but there definitely has been some. Here's a letter
to customers from Eckhard Pfeiffer from a year ago:
http://www.digital.com/quash/pfeiffer.htm. The letter reflects the
reasons that Compaq wanted to buy Digital in the first place, and none
of what's said there has changed.
>The renaming of the Digital
>UNIX (the only native Alpha OS really left) in the past few days makes one
>wonder further.
Obviously, Digital Unix had to be renamed now that Digital doesn't
exist any more.
>Will Steele (Digital UNIX 5.0) be native for the Merced
>platform, with a "oh, yeah we should do something for the orphans" port to
>Alpha sometime later? Those of us with support needs on DU will have to wait
>and see.
Steel is well on the way to coming out (preliminary versions are
running internally), and Merced is still a future promise, so
obviously Alpha remains the primary platform for Steel. Yes, there is
an announced plan to port Digital Unix to IA64. I can't stop you from
interpreting that as part of a secret plan to abandon the Alpha, but I
don't see it that way. We have a good, mature 64-bit Unix and we'd
like to jump in to the market supplying a Unix for IA64 when it comes
out.
>Meanwhile, how come Samsung brought out 700MHz Alphas first and has indicated
>when they expect 900MHz or 1GHz parts to be available, yet nothing has been
>heard from DEC/Compaq? I've got some 2100s and 4100s that could use some
>CPU upgrades...
The Alpha 21264 (EV6) was very late, but it finally shipped late in
1998 in the AlphaServer DS20. See
http://www.digital.com/alphaserver/announce/ds20.html. More EV6
machines and faster EV6 chips are on the way. The next two
generations (EV7 and EV8) are both in development.
I'm not sure if Samsung is really ahead at the moment or if they are
just announcing things before we are (or if you just happen to be
seeing their announcements and not ours).
>Yeah, clearly someone at DEC/Compaq is still doing palcode updates and
>related install floppies (was the Cactus really necessary to Compaqize the
>latest updates?), but I don't see any new processor designs here.
>Only at Samsung.
I don't believe Samsung is doing new Alpha designs, just shrinks and
speedup tweaks to the designs we provide. It is a multi-year,
many-person effort to do a new processor chip design from the ground
up. I'm not super well informed about what Samsung is doing, but they
simply haven't had time to do a full new design, and I doubt that they
would invest in that kind of duplicate effort.
>My apologies for this headed-off-topic post, but it seemed prudent.
>Email works.
I'm sorry to be off-topic, too, but since Frank has been posting
misinformation in this public forum, I want to correct it here too.
I'm sure people who don't care have skipped this post before reading
this far down anyway.
>Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"I love the XYZ-57, powered by
> <uhclem.feb%nemesis.lonestar.org> | the new Letnium-III processor.
> | It's always reporting back to
>This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th | Bill about my activities, so
>Copr. 1999, ask before reprinting. I'm never lonely."
>"Letnium", "Letni", and "Inside Letni" are trademarks of FDIV Engineering
>
Frank Durda IV
: cheaply recently. The LCDs in particular have AX- and NX- part numbers
: which look like those in the Tandy support parts listings (in one case
: where I was actually able to figure out what the LCD was for, the part
Those do sound like old Tandyized part number prefixes.
I don't think Tandy has any GRiD parts left to dump, but AST (now effectively
defunct) may have some they are purging. At one point, essentially all the
GRiD part inventory was shifted to the AST repair facility in Texas.
The old Tandy Outlet Store (at National Parts) lost the contract to get ASTs
factory and repair depot scrap a couple of years ago, so it probably isn't
coming out of there.
They might be coming out of the actual manufacturers who have quit holding
spares inventory for Tandy/GRiD/AST. If they are showing up on the west
coast, this is probably the case.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"The Knights who say "LETNi"
<uhclem.feb99%nemesis.lonestar.org> | demand... A SEGMENT REGISTER!!!"
|"A what?"
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th |"LETNi! LETNi! LETNi!" - 1983
Lamar Owen
>
> Frank Durda IV <uhclem...@nemesis.lonestar.org> wrote:
> >The renaming of the Digital
> >UNIX (the only native Alpha OS really left) in the past few days makes one
> >wonder further.
>
> Obviously, Digital Unix had to be renamed now that Digital doesn't
> exist any more.
I will say only a few lines: Alpha Linux runs natively on Alpha -- and
Tim's excellent xtrs TRS-80 emulator runs nicely on Linux. So, you can
take those $99 cheap Alphas and use to run your TRS-80 software (I just
HAD to swing this thread back on topic....)
Lamar Owen (a statisfied xtrs user -- now if I could only get my
physical floppies reading my nearly 15 megabytes of TRS-80 disks...)
WGCR Internet Radio
Michael Shell
:After a combination of two or three failed product launches and large losses,
:Tandy elected to spin-off its electronics/manufacturing divisions into a
:decided it would die instantly if left on its own, so they pulled-back the
:parts they wanted to keep and sold the rest to a variety of companies.
I know this issue was brought up a while ago. But, who exactly owns
the legal rights to the TRS-80 stuff now? Does Tandy National Parts
still supply copies of the old service manuals like they used to?
Was any progress made in getting the TRS-80 line released in the
public domain?
--
Mike Shell
gt1...@prism.gatech.edu
Tom Lake
to the Level II and Model III ROMs.
--
Tom Lake
ICQ #25589135
Frank Durda IV
[3]After a combination of two or three failed product launches and large losses,
[3]Tandy elected to spin-off its electronics/manufacturing divisions into a
[3]separate company. On looking at the books of the proposed company, they
[3]decided it would die instantly if left on its own, so they pulled-back the
[3]parts they wanted to keep and sold the rest to a variety of companies.
Michael Shell (gt1...@prism.gatech.edu) wrote:
[4]I know this issue was brought up a while ago. But, who exactly owns
[4]the legal rights to the TRS-80 stuff now? Does Tandy National Parts
[4]still supply copies of the old service manuals like they used to?
[4]Was any progress made in getting the TRS-80 line released in the
[4]public domain?
All Tandy intellectual property related to its computer products, which
includes designs, software, and related patents, was sold on July 1st, 1993
to AST Research, later renamed AST Computers. AST immediately got in
financial trouble and obtained loans in exchange for company ownership
from Samsung Electronics of South Korea. By 1995, Samsung became the majority
shareholder due to the increasing loans and in early 1997 finally obtained
all of AST. At this point, these rights transferred to Samsung, as AST simply
became a division (or more accurately, a marketing name) for Samsung.
In December of 1998, Samsung gave up on AST and sold their AST divisions
name and "intellectual property rights" to a group of investors, headed by the
former head of Packard Bell, who plan to sell computer products under the AST
name. In theory, that means the old Tandy rights passed to "AST Mark II" at
this point, but someone will actually have to ask Samsung whether that stuff
was in the deal.
In late 1996, I had a general agreement from the President of AST to release
the old Tandy material to the public domain, including all software that
didn't use Microsoft Windows. However, AST lawyers got involved and citing a
baseless fear of releasing something to the public domain that might cause
them a legal liability, they buried the project when it was only a few days
from being a press release. Shortly after, AST became Samsung, and all future
mails on the subject always ended-up in the Samsung/AST legal department. If
I got any reply at all, it was a "we still have reservations about this but
will investigate the matter" form letter.
Considering that AST did not ever use any of the patents or technology obtained
from Tandy that was older than 1991 (apart from a few patents used in a TI vs
AST lawsuit defense that had been used the same way in the TI vs Tandy lawsuit
a few years earlier), nor did AST attempt any serious search for this sort
of material at the time (I was there and they were more interested in other
trivial things), this stuff is essentially abandoned and the ownership rights
are not being enforced at all.
Therefore, AST Mark II or Samsung technically do own these Tandy items but
could probably never prove such ownership or even knowledge of ownership in
any court. At last check, you have to know it exists and it is yours to be
able to claim something is yours. You can't draw a big circle and claim
everything inside the circle is yours. USL vs BSDI and UC proved that
argument was very flawed.
AST Mark II (or Samsung) would have to spend way too much money determining
who actually owned a given ball to sue anybody over it.
As to the older ROMs, I can't speak for the CoCo side of the shop (some
contained Microsoft and some contained Microware code), but two of the "real"
Model III ROMs and the Level II Model I ROM contained code acknowledged to
originally be a licensed Microsoft product but there is Tandy-originated
code in there too. The Model III ROMs that came with the Model 4, 4D and
the disk image for the 4P were NOT (I repeat again NOT) a Microsoft product,
and these had a Tandy Copyright. Tandy deliberately reverse-engineered,
modified and released their own version of the ROM and Disk BASIC, due to a
royalty dispute that had been brewing between Tandy and Microsoft for
about two years. This happened prior to me getting into the system software
group, but I was told at the time that the last year or so of Model III
production III systems had this "Microsoft-free" code in them as well.
The key people who worked on that "Microsoft-free" project are now both
deceased (Ron Light - whose name you will find in early Model IV ROMs, see
the string "RON" - and George Robertson). Dave Cozad also worked on the
no-Microsoft code at various times prior to 1983 and I took over work on it
around the fall of 1983, long after Ron and George had moved on to other
projects.
For Model IIIs, the "C" ROM was always a pure-Tandy creation. Only the
"B" ROM and part of the "A" ROM were ever something licensed from Microsoft.
All three ROMs (and later two) on the Model 4s were all code that Tandy
claimed full ownership of.
Tandy, in selling the store to AST back in 1993, got the right to continue to
support their customers, and that was taken to mean (by Tandy) that Tandy
could make and sell replacement disks for operating systems and things owned
by Tandy. However, Tandy got greedy and started making copies of anything
they had ever sold, regardless of who wrote it and who held the copyright,
including products that Tandy never actually duplicated/manufactured, like
SCO for PCs. Microsoft, Lotus, Borland and lots of other people could have
sued Tandy big-time over the replacement disk program, particularly after
Tandy stopped looking for proof of purchase before selling anybody a $7 copy
of anything, but the rightful owners didn't sue Tandy, at least not yet.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"Run out and buy a Letnium-III
<uhclem.feb99%nemesis.lonestar.org> | today, with the new 'report to
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th | Bill' serial number feature!"
Jonathan H. Davidson
(Frank Durda IV) wrote:
>Therefore, AST Mark II or Samsung technically do own these Tandy items but
>could probably never prove such ownership or even knowledge of ownership in
>any court. At last check, you have to know it exists and it is yours to be
>able to claim something is yours. You can't draw a big circle and claim
>everything inside the circle is yours. USL vs BSDI and UC proved that
>argument was very flawed.
Could Frank (or anybody else) please provide the citation for this
decision? Even the full names of the parties would be helpful.
Jonathan H. Davidson
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
j...@compusmart.ab.ca
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ab443/home.html
Frank Durda IV
[5]Therefore, AST Mark II or Samsung technically do own these Tandy items but
[5]could probably never prove such ownership or even knowledge of ownership in
[5]any court. At last check, you have to know it exists and it is yours to be
[5]able to claim something is yours. You can't draw a big circle and claim
[5]everything inside the circle is yours. USL vs BSDI and UC proved that
[5]argument was very flawed.
Jonathan H. Davidson (j...@compusmart.ab.ca) wrote:
[6]Could Frank (or anybody else) please provide the citation for this
[6]decision? Even the full names of the parties would be helpful.
What, you mean USL vs BSDI? That was the name of the case.
The case was heard in a court in California, but I don't remember what court.
(USL = Unix System Labratories, BSDI = Berkeley System Design, Inc.)
USL was the marketing arm of AT&T for licensing UNIX, and USL had sued BSDI
over distributing a port of BSD 4.3 to the 386 platform without requiring
people to run out and buy a USL source license, which cost $50,000 per CPU
for a SVR4 license at that time. (The University of California joined the
case on behalf of BSDI after several months or perhaps a year).
In the case, AT&T claimed ownership of all parts and files UNIX, but as the
case went on, it was demonstrated that hardly any of the original AT&T code
remained in BSD, having been newly written (some as part of a government
contract), and existing AT&T code re-written over the past decade by thousands
of different people (the bulk of which were UCB undergrads doing various term
projects). Even the judge laughed when USL claimed to have sole ownership
of fundamental C language precepts with complete power to license for these
two lines of code:
(from /usr/include/sys/param.h)
#define TRUE 1
#define FALSE 0
AT&T also screwed-up their own position, and over five years after the fact,
tried to copyright material that they had already been distributing, but
putting older dates on the copyright application. The judge didn't issue a
ruling on this precise point because of other events, but said these
copyrights are probably not valid, but in fact the application were false and
therefore a violation of trademark/copyright law of that day. AT&T also
apparently tried to copyright materials already copyrighted by others, making
things look even less organized. USL wisely backed-away from relying on
copyright filings as the base of their case. Even a patent they waved
around had expired prior to the date of claimed infingement.
Then UCB (copyright holders of BSD) joined the suit, claiming that AT&T had
in fact stolen/lifted/taken material from BSD and included it in System V R4
UNIX and distributed it as their own (like the entire TCP/IP subsystem, all
networking utilities and the related BSD documentation), without giving proper
copyright notice to UCB and the individual authors, which is about all you
have to do to be able to use UCB copyrighted material.
In joining the case, UCB asked the judge for essentially no monetary damages
but demanded that AT&T/USL be required to recall and destroy all copies of all
operating systems based on System V R4 that contained the UCB materials. If
so ruled, it would have meant that AT&T would have to tell their resellers to
pull back SCO UNIX and XENIX, Interactive UNIX, Data General UNIX, Silicon
Graphics UNIX, Digital UNIX, IBM AIX, and lots of other AT&T licensees
versions of UNIX and strip most of the functionality out before giving it
back to their customers. USL was now concerned that such a ruling might
annoy some of their vendors and this put USL on the defensive.
The UCB request, which the judge said he was leaning in favor of granting,
combined with the fact that only five modules in all of UNIX could be remotely
demonstrated to still contain virgin AT&T code, caused USL to settle.
The end agreement allowed BSDI to continue to sell BSD-based software, provided
they replaced the five identified modules, something that took about six
weeks to do. The duration of the case nearly wiped out this small company
(obviously USLs intent all along), but they survived and continue to do modest
business today. I know some of the original partners and was days away from
going to work there when they had to stop hiring because of the lawsuit.
The release of BSD 4.4 Lite is the outcome of that Lawsuit (real BSD 4.4
contains the five modules and you have to have the AT&T license to get a peek),
as was FreeBSD 1.5., which both dropped the five modules (out of tens of
thousands in the system) and replaced them with no-AT&T code versions.
NetBSD followed, and in short order BSDi, FreeBSD and NetBSD were all
AT&T-Free. The amount of code replaced to solve the entire legal dispute
ended-up being less than 500 lines, including comments.
USL still had to get all their vendors to update manuals and boot messages
to declare the UCB copyrights on the code AT&T/USL "lifted". In the final
summary, USL lost in almost every area in this case.
Unfortunately, because the case settled and did not run to final judgement
(although the judge did approve the multi-party settlement), it isn't the
strongest US legal precedent you can find. However, there were several
rulings and injunctions made during the case that showed that AT&T/USL
could not just claim the entire derived work (BSD) to be their work just
because it used the word UNIX or because ten years earlier AT&T had a product
that did similar things that at that time contain only AT&T code.
At the time, there were several mailing lists and one or two newsgroups
that followed the case closely. There may be archives of that material
still out there somewhere. You might try UCB. The press also covered
the story intermittently, so the archives for the various trade magazines
probably have some stories on the case. I have a clip file somewhere.
Frank Durda IV - only these addresses work:|"The Knights who say "LETNi"
<uhclem.feb99%nemesis.lonestar.org> | demand... A SEGMENT REGISTER!!!"
|"A what?"
This Anti-spam address expires Feb. 28th |"LETNi! LETNi! LETNi!" - 1983
Michael Shell
Frank,
I second the motion. If you ever write a book about Tandy history, I will
absolutely, positively, buy a copy!
--
Mike Shell
gt1...@prism.gatech.edu
Art McAninch
their
computer history! I would buy a copy!
Have a great forever!
Art, The MiG Pilot
Michael Shell wrote in message <7a8pr2$4...@acmex.gatech.edu>...