Re: Humorous Quotations from the Experts
- From: "Ron Herfurth" <rgh2z@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 08:42:06 -0400
An interesting one would be the response of Xerox's management to the
creation of the GUI, computer printer( not sure what type) and the
communication system that tied it all together (again, don't remember the
technical name). Intersting because they were all created by Xerox at Palo
Alto, where they sat unused till Steve Jobs paid $50,000 for a short tour
and got to use any ideas he could carry out in his head.
Question : somone related to me that at the 1964 World's Fair IBM's exhibit
was the paperless office of the future. I'm guessing that the concept of a
paperless office filled Xerox with abject terror which is why they got a
bunch of California computer geeks to create a paperless office. But by the
time the geeks had done just that the threat of a paperless office had
subsided. Any validity to that cause and effect?
and
Didn't Kodak once state that you can't copy anything with out the
photographic process? right about thay time they tossed the creator of
xerography out on the street?
Didn't Kodak also turn down Land and his camera?
ron
"Pluto" <pluto7@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:efs65v$kj$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Humorous Quotations
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular
Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas
Watson,
chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with
the
best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't
last out the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice
Hall, 1957
"But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing
Systems
Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken
Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as
a
means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to
us." --Western Union internal memo, 1876.
"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay
for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates
in
response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better
than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University management
professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight
delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers,
1927.
"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary
Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in
"Gone
With The Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say
America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you
make." --Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca
Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin,
president,
Royal Society, 1895.
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." --Spencer
Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It"
Notepads.
"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even
built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or
we' ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come
work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard,
and
they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college
yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari
and
H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction
and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to
react.
He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high
schools." --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's
revolutionary rocket work.
"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of
your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to
accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of
weight
training." --Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem
by inventing Nautilus.
"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're
crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to
drill for oil in 1859.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving
Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duel
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre Pachet,
Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the
intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen,
British
surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
(And of course, the most famous one...)
"640K RAM ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
.
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