When Exxon Wanted To Be a Personal Computing Revolutionary

An anonymous reader writes with this story about Exxon's early involvement with consumer computers. "This weekend is the anniversary of the release of the Apple IIc, the company's fourth personal computer iteration and its first attempt at creating a portable computer. In 1981, Apple's leading competitor in the world of consumer ('novice') computer users was IBM, but the market was about to experience a deluge of also-rans and other silent partners in PC history, including the multinational descendant of Standard Oil, Exxon. The oil giant had been quietly cultivating a position in the microprocessor industry since the mid-1970s via the rogue Intel engineer usually credited with developing the very first commercial microprocessor, Federico Faggin, and his startup Zilog. Faggin had ditched Intel in 1974, after developing the 4004 four-bit CPU and its eight-bit successor, the 8008. As recounted in Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans Who Invented the Personal Computer, Faggin was upset about Intel's new requirement that employees had to arrive by eight in the morning, while he usually worked nights. Soon after leaving Intel and forming Zilog, Faggin was approached by Exxon Enterprises, the investment arm of Exxon, which began funding Zilog in 1975."

Comments

Managers & HR take note

[MrLogic17]

Mangers! Learn this lesson from history: Intel lost one of the word's greatest computer chip designers, and created their own competition by making arbitrary work requirements, and not recognizing work-life balance.

Employees are people, not machines. Your greatest talent will, at some point, say "screw you" - and start competing with you. Unless you take care of them like human beings.

Re:Managers & HR take note

[Michael Woodhams]

There are three lessons here. One is about arbitrary work requirements, which you've made well.

Second is the problems which arise when vertical integration in your company means that one level's customers are another level's competitors. This conflict of interest is liable to drive away customers. (A company my father worked for many years ago had a similar issue: one branch manufactured and sold refrigeration equipments and spare parts. Another branch maintained and repaired refrigeration equipment, so their competition was the manufacturing branch's customers. The maintenance branch was separated into a new company to avoid this problem.)

Third is when you have a large corporation with an innovative product, that innovative product's potential can easily be crippled by being held hostage to vested interests of other parts of the corporation.

Re:Ah the Z-80

[LMariachi]

Z80s are still being manufactured and still in use all over the place, just not so's you'd see them.

Obligatory Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

When asked to attend an 8:00 AM meeting, the programmer responded that he didn't stay up that late.