Posted on 09/15/2014 4:22:56 PM PDT by bigbob
Andrew Kay, an inventor who pioneered the use of compact computers in the 1980s with Kaypro II, died Aug. 28 at an assisted living home in Vista, Calif. He was 95.
His son, David Kay, confirmed the death. The cause was not disclosed.
The Kaypro II weighed in at a mere 26 pounds, which is elephantine by today’s standards but was a technological breakthrough at the time. It was a favorite of early computer aficionados and briefly made Mr. Kay a high-tech titan. By 1990, he had filed for bankruptcy protection.
Mr. Kay was a charismatic inventor who scoffed at traditional management techniques and gave his factory workers and sales staff an unusual degree of freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Around 1995 I had a 386 (or was it a 486). When I installed extra RAM Chips to increase my RAM from 4to 20 Megs my buddy in Tech Control said “Are you insane?”
The hard drive was half a gig.
The cell phones teen girls are using to take and post “selfies” would blow that thing away.
I bought my first home computer in January 1990. The whole shebang, including printer and software cost about $3k. Took out a “computer loan” from the credit union at 10%.
20MHz processor, 512KB or 1MB RAM, 48MB HD, VGA monitor, dot matrix printer, WordPerfect, DOS 3.x. It was just-behind-cutting-edge at the time.
Yep, I had one of those.
My wife’s uncle, who also died this week had one too.
RIP.
I had one to use as a remote terminal and data collector. I would write programs on it and send to Data General Mini Computers. Does that date me? They were expensive though.
I used to sell a dual 8” floppy system built into a desk. Favorite vertical market was temp employment agencies. My brother modified the software for day labor operators and called the software BUMMS (Basic Undesirable Mendicant Management System).
My first computer was a Kaypro II and it worked so well I bought a Kaypro 10 as soon as it was available. Next, I purchased the Bondwell-16 with the speech synthesizer and I got less work done because I kept making it say silly stuff.
Osborne Computers was in my house with dad owning one. In our family room, we got a picture of my dad next to a 50s style IBM computer. My boys can’t believe their computer is more powerful then that IBM.
I put my family’s business inventory on my Kaypro and C64. That was fun..
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