In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Phoebus Dokos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Malcolm Cadman ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >A floppy disk drive would certainly have made it more successful - if >people would have been prepared to pay for it. Around 1/3 to 2/3 again >added to the selling price ? >I was told that, just before the QL was due for release, someone showed Sir >Clive one of the 'new' 3.5" drives and said it would fit into the same >space as the microdrives. He is reported to have said 'That will never >catch on' >This is probably an apocraphal (is this spelled right Geoff ?) story but I >like it. More an 'urban myth' :-) ... the business decisions were on cost, weight, appearance, etc ... plus Clive owned the rights to microdrives so he was about to make far more 'dosh' for himself ! ( With a disk drive he would have paid rights to someone else ). Also, do not forget that the first microdrives were intended to be only the start of a whole range of innovative new ways for mass storage. Clive subsequently 'lost' a lot of his 'millions' investing in plant and research to produce new devices that would have developed and owned, and sold to the world. Looking back from where we are now, and the development of hardware that has taken place, it seems odd that any 'individual' tried to do what he tried to do. Yet, then again, he was ( is ) an innovator ... and he just may have succeeded :-) -- Malcolm Cadman
