$399 Mac Clone Most Likely a Hoax

timholman writes "According to Gizmodo, an investigation has shown that the $399 OpenMac is almost certainly vaporware, as is Psystar itself. The company's address has actually changed twice this week, according to its web page, and Psystar is no longer accepting credit card transactions. Too bad for those who may have already ordered an OpenMac."

Comments

Re:Will it exist in 30 days

[Vellmont]

Commodore did that all the time. I'd recommend "On the Edge" (which details a lot of other semi-shady practices of the whole industry).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0973864907/ref=pd_bbs_olp_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208554130&sr=8-2

Re:Will it exist in 30 days

[Paradise Pete]

I always enjoy reading stories about that stuff

SoftRAM is a good story. They sold 600,000 copies of a program that they claimed would compress the contents of RAM, effectively doubling the available amount. It turned out that the program didn't even attempt it.

Re:Will it exist in 30 days

[MojoStan]

Microsoft. Sold an operating system to IBM before they had one. No, they agreed to provide one and then bought it from someone else. Expanding the story, Microsoft told IBM that they didn't have an OS. MS bundled CP/M with one of their programming language products and IBM mistakenly believed the bundled OS was a Microsoft product. MS then referred IBM to Digital Research (maker of CP/M), but Digital Research dropped the ball. Paul Allen knew about a rudimentary CP/M clone (QDOS) made by a small company across town (Seattle Computer Products), so MS convinced IBM they could fix up this OS and make it work for the IBM PC. Initially, MS licensed QDOS from SCP, but they later agreed to purchase it for $50,000 (deal of the century).

The false "DOS was vaporware" version of what happened often gets modded up on Slashdot. This is the version told on that stupid made-for-TV, "based on a true story" docudrama Pirates of the Silicon Valley . A much better telling of what actually happened (with actual interviews with Paul Allen, Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Jack Sams of IBM, and Tim Patterson of SCP) is available from the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds (transcript of the relevant part available here).