Packard Bell, was: Re: Eee PC hands on?

[Ric Werme]

Jerry Feldman wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:09:07 -0500
> "Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:

> >   Packard Bell?  *Packard Bell*?  

> It is a common practice to acquire brands. Actually, the original
> Packard Bell manufactured radios and was acquired in the 1960s. The PC
> company of ill repute (well deserved ill repute) bought the name in
> 1986. It never fully went out of business, and is now part of
> Acer/Gateway. 

Hmm.  I don't recall their radio days, but in 1962 they produced computers.
The Packard Bell 250 used a magnetorestrictive delay line memory (basically
audio pulsed running around many turns of stiff wire).  My father had
one where he worked at Bailey Meter and was finishing a magnetic
drum based BCD process control computer that was the first commercially
successful multiprocessor.  He claimed it was so easy to program that
a 12 year-old could do it, and then taught me how.

Unfortunately I hand a mental block between the numeric machine code that
was clear to me vs. the textual instructions of the PB250 and didn't
pursue programming until I got to college.  Kind of a pity, writing
PB 250 assembly code would have been great fun.

See
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/G-Bell-91-US-mini-1968-to-1982.html
http://www.digitpress.com/faq/computerlist.txt

Core memory didn't revolutionize the computer field until a few years
later (a dollar a byte), and it took a decade before semiconductor
memory triggered the next revolution with 1 Kb dynamic RAM.

IIRC, the original Packard-Bell name was chosen not because it was
founded by those people or companies, but to come up with a name that
had instant recognition.  That certainly wouldn't happen today without
lawsuits!  The second coming I think came from (I forget the name)
buying rights to the name from whatever comapny wound up with the
original's assets to start a new company with instant name recognition
but to avoid the lawsuits that would have come from a new name.

I think both companies were privately held during their heydays.

Hmm, I should've checked this first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packard_Bell

  -Ric Werme