Portable Pioneer Adam Osborne dead at 64 324
douglips writes "Yahoo News has the story. He's best remembered for the blunder of announcing that his next version of the Osborne portable computer was so much better, that nobody bought the current version and the company died quickly. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
Farewell, Uncle A-O (Score:5, Interesting)
But a few of my extended family members still have Osborne 1s in their basements/attics/garages. I played with one last year at a family reunion. The article is correct, it's almost exactly like a portable sewing machine.
So long, Uncle A-O!
OH my gosh... (Score:5, Interesting)
He said, "An entrepreneur is the kind of guy that walks into a bar with friends, and notices the one woman that is too hot for anyone to consider making an approach. The entrepreneur is able to walk up to that woman, begin a conversation, and have her under his thumb before the evening's end."
He then went to speak of a lawsuit against is VP line of software. He had a spreadsheet and was in a lawsuit against Lotus.
He said something like, "Who care if I lose. Any publicity is good publicity. When I'm at the press conference after verdict, I'll announce my new line of Artificial Intelligence software."
Just thought I'd share with you.
RIP Adam.
Heavy heart... (Score:2, Interesting)
It was a funny little machine, with its 80 character console on a scrollable, 50 character, 4" monitor.
The closest, most pure competitor was the Kaypro.
He also was behind a lot of early technical books. I think I still have a book on the 8080 from his company.
For old farts like me, he was a notable personality back In The Day of every body trying to make a mark in the computer market.
Sad to hear of his passing.
Meta-Slashdotting (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it very funny that the first site that comes up when you search for "Adam Osborne Biography" on Google goes down moments after Slashdot posts his obit. Even if slashdot hasn't linked to it.
All the karma-whores rushing out in their titbit scavenger hunt.
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But it WAS a great machine in its time (Score:3, Interesting)
stuff I remember about Osborne (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking back now, it seems to me that the Osborne books were the logical O'Reilly Associates of that era. I was particularly fond of "Introduction to Microprocessors" and their various assembly language introductions. My copies were majorly dogeared. The only one I hung onto was my 6502 Assembly Language Programming by Lance Leventhal.
About ten years ago, some friends of mine gave me an Osborne I, which they picked up for $7 at a garage sale in Colorado Springs. I turned it on a few years ago and it still worked... was thinking of Ebaying it but I think I might just hang on to it now. Osborne will be remembered by me mostly for the Osborne I and those great books he published.
Remember Adam Osborne (Score:5, Interesting)
Paperback Software was a great idea - cheap versions of popular software sold with paperback manuals for $99.00 or so (I think VP-Expert sold for more). VP-Planner was the Lotus clone, VP-Info was a dBase clone, VP-Graphics was a standalone graphics program, VP-Expert was an expert systems program, and there were a couple more I don't remember off the top of my head.
He was a good person to work for and with, and always knew how to make a splash and cause a ruckus. And it was fun to go out for Indian food with him, since he spoke Urdu and Hindi.
Rest in peace, sir.
Open Source Osborne (Score:4, Interesting)
Osbourne 2 Specs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:never used an osborne (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/o
It was based on a Zilog Z80A processor (same as that used in the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Colecovision console, and similar to that used in the original Gameboy), but curiously, used Motorola peripheral chips.
It came bundled with a wide selection of software - Supercalc, Wordstar, an operating system called CP/M (the blueprint for DOS), and a BASIC interpreter by a small software company called Microsoft.
One of the really cool things about the Osborne is that it was sold with a manual about 500 pages thick. There are chapters on each of the software packages, but also a great deal of technical information on the machine itself - memory maps, details on the types of peripherals and that kind of thing.
It was clearly the product of a man and a company who loved computing, released in a spirit of openness and innocence for a hobbyist culture. Sadly, that culture died soon after, and stayed that way for some time.
It was the first computer I ever had, which started me off down a road that eventually led to me earn a degree in Computer Engineering. When I first heard about Linux, it was that same hobbyist culture that immediately appealed to me.
I think I'll boot mine up tonight. Thanks, Adam.
Osborne I was substantial for two reasons... (Score:3, Interesting)
But the second reason was the Software Bundle. For $1795 you got the computer, but you also received copies of WordStar(with MailMerge!), Supercalc and Microsoft BASIC. At the time the software bundle alone was worth over $1,000.
That was a new concept in the industry at the time and contributed largely to the intial success of the machine.
My first experiences with computers was with a CP/M system my father bought as a home computer back in 1982. The Morrow MD-2, it was a competitor to Osborne only it was a more traditional desktop case rather than a portable. Computers were a heck of a lot simpler back then, although not nearly as useful.
Osborne memories (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my first real professional gigs was as an Osborne technician. I was a specialist in getting the floppy drives working, which was a lot of work getting the guts assembled and disassembled correctly, it was so jammed together it was a tech's nightmare. And they got bashed around a lot so everyone needed a lot of service on the floppies, which weren't built for that kind of abuse. I still have videotapes of osborne service procedures, they were recorded on some odd video format, IVHS, and we had to buy a special player to use them. Apparently this was some early form of copy protection.
People loved their osbornes, I had a lot of clients that attached the early Corvus 20Mb and 5Mb hard drives, and just unplugged for portable use. It was nice kit, but Kaypro aggressively moved into low-end CPM portables and ate up that market. When the Compaq came out, it pretty much killed any market for CPM portables.
What I remember most about Adam Osborne was as a writer. I first learned programming and digital circuitry from Osborne's early microprocessor books, I still have the books and now they're collector's items. I remember buying his business memoir "Hypergrowth" for 99 cents on the remainders shelf, and thinking how ironic that was. Osborne was a model for early information businesses, they aggregated money around people with ideas and the ability to publish them and mass produce. And he was also a parable for the dotcom era's excesses and of drinking too much of one's own koolaid. I still remember Osborne's story of shutting down the production of the Osborne 1. The announcement of the Osborne II killed the prior model sales, causing a premature cash crunch as they tried to dump the last of the old generation. Since that day, the damage caused by prematurely announcing new models and cannibalizing existing sales has been known as "the Osborne effect." Some quantity like $150k of motherboards were left over when the old line was killed, but they'd run out of plastic bezels and case parts, so the $150k of PCBs were left in stock, unused, with no way to turn them into complete machines. Some middle manager got the idea to order new bezels, but the dies had all been discarded. He authorized new production, and by the time his activities came to light, he's spent some insane amount like over a million bucks making new dies so he could make bezels to make those $150k of motherboards into a salable product. Product nobody wanted anyway. Ooops.
History from Bizarro World? (Score:4, Interesting)
Osborne got his start working for Intel. He wrote the docs for their first microprocessors.
For a while he had an industry-gossip columns (at least one was called "From The Fountainhead," IIRC) in Interface Age and InfoWorld magazines.
He self-published a book called An Introduction To Microprocessors. One of the cofounders of IMSAI was so impressed with the book, he struck a deal with Osborne to include a copy with each IMSAI machine sold.
That IMSAI deal provided the means for Osborne to start his own publishing company, which produced computer books. He would often go to Homebrew Computer Club meetings with boxes full of his books, and leave with empty boxes and wads of cash.
He eventually sold his publishing company to McGraw-Hill, for millions.
The money from that deal was what he used to start Osborne Computer. The Osborne I was designed by Lee Felsenstein, another prominent name in the history of the Early Days.
These Osborne facts and more can be found in the excellent book Fire in the Valley, by Paul Freiberger & Michael Swaine.
~Philly
Re:Never heard of him... (Score:5, Interesting)
I really liked the guy, he had a lot of good ideas in the pioneer days of PC computing and he made the first portable computer that was actually usable.
Adam, you will be missed by many who knew you and admired the work you did.
Rest in peace!
we had one of these back in the day (Score:1, Interesting)
there was a tiny green monochrome display built into the box, but it also had output to out monochrome amber monitor. but the printing was the most interesting--we used an existing electric typewriter (smith corona? i don't remember) which was, at the time, miles ahead of any dot-matrix printer. i was impressed, at least. but it was extremely odd to send a document to the typewriter, and have it clacking away for a minute or two with no one at the controls. like a player piano, more or less.
Adam Osborne rides technology's cutting edge... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironic, maybe. That was before the Osborne computer company went bust. So he knew the dangers of blazing a trail.
Wellvis said:
I can verify the brilliant part. I heard him speak a couple of times. And I can verify the marvelous parties too.
I got taken to a party he hosted in his suite at a computer show in October 1979. He was there to speak, and his publishing company had a booth. I talked with a fabulously, memorably, beautiful, friendly gal at this party, one of his employees. All three of the workers from his publishing company that he brought with him were absolutely stunning. Jon Draper (aka Captain Crunch) and Ted Nelson (another American icon, the guy who invented hypertext.) were also at that party.
I introduced myself to him when he was speaking at another computer event at York University in Toronto, about eight months later. (He blew me off. Well big deal.) But the thing that struck me was that he seemed to have lost about thirty pounds. He had been lean and handsome before. By the summer of 1980 he looked ill.
That would be about fourteen years before this mysterious, long illness. What a horrible way to go. I've got a morbid curiousity about it.
Re:Never heard of him... (Score:2, Interesting)
A friend of mine dragged me over to him and we talked for a few seconds. There was something impressive about the about the guy. Something I will never possess.
I used all the Paperback Software products until the end of the company. They were great. And inexpensive. Lotus sued and Paperback folded. Borland fought on and won. In the end all 3 companies lost.
Down through the years I used to wonder what ever became of him. I would go to Google and search on his name. The responses had him 1) wandering the world disheveled and talking to himself, 2) living on somebody's couch, or 3) already passed away.
So long Adam, the world may never see your like again.
Re:stuff I remember about Osborne (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm surprised that Osborne's publishing venture with McGraw-Hill has received such little attention in this slashdot topic. He published a lot of books that got many an aspiring geek started in the early eighties. I learned assembly with the 6809 vesrion of the Leventhal book. I never really got the hang of assembly before Leventhal, after that it all made sense. A lot of the books Osborne published were that way... He seemed to publish books that were very practical and helped the reader understand the topic at a fundamental level. Typically the Osborne books served as invaluable references long after the reader had mastered the topic. I still own my Leventhal book too. It represents a huge turning point in my understanding of computers... Many folks will remember him for the luggable computers but, IMHO, his real contribution to computing was his publishing.
--zawada