"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
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
* Bill Gates, 1981, commenting on size of
RAM in computers
"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 HP
interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal
computer.