From the March/April issue of Stanford Magazine. The intro: "In 1980, Apple Computer asked a group of guys fresh from Stanford's product design program to take a $400 device and make it mass-producible, reliable and cheap. Their work transformed personal computing."

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), March 17, 2002

Answers

Surely at least one other person would find this interesting. Commodore Poole? Flint? Debbie?

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), March 18, 2002.

I read it and liked it. I just had nothing to add, so I didn't.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 18, 2002.

David, I thought the article was extremely interesting. Designing things for practical mass-production has always fascinated me.

-- Peter Errington (petere7@starpower.net), March 18, 2002.

Is that guy in the pale blue shirt in the middle of the Mouse Club picture wearing any pants?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), March 19, 2002.

More importantly, does he have a dick?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), March 19, 2002.

Well, this is the basis of my entire job -- taking some fairly expensive piece of hardware and redesigning for cheap. Not necessarily lower quality, or less durable or reliable. Often, we can cut costs by a factor of 2-5, which is substantial.

Some of it is economies of scale, but a lot is rather challenging engineering. I enjoy it, but I don't regard it as all that fascinating. Just everyday work, for me.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 2002.