Tim Rowledge wrote:

> Why all this brouhaha about a rather boring sounding processor?

Because transmeta understands how to generate hype. Hire high-exposure
programmer; as importantly, not only keep your project secret, but tell
everyone how secret it is!

> The problem is in making a business that can provide the machines at a price
> that will create a market big enough to lead to a successful company.

It all comes down not to being first, nor best, but to have the right timing
(more often by luck than cleverness). A few examples:

- Hypertext is very old. WWW/HTML/HTTP is very likely the worst HT system
ever designed. It just happened to, after a few years of slumber, become the
basis for a graphical browser, which, too, happened to come at the time.
PCs, fast-enough modems, and a rudimentary GUI were widely available.

Imagine if people would have said, what's new--the Internet is thirty years
old? That was clearly not important.

 In fact, Don Norman said the www caught on because it was so primitive that
people could take it on. Which brings me to:

- The famous clone of 8-bit CP/M for the 8086. Quite probably the most
primitive OS ever made. It was even chosen by IBM because it was cheaper
than the other one. And because it should be bad enough not to jeopardize
sales of IBM's more expensive systems?

- The 8088. A descendant of the Intel 4004 if you will. Hardly the best at
the time. Now we have descendants of the descendants of the ... All greatly
constrained by deriving from the original. Err... one might say the
transmeta chips are the latest attempt to give another lease of life for
this family tree in a world in which it is obsolete, like the Pentium
managed to do.

- Windows. I need say no more.

- Java. We all know about Smalltalk and so on. Java wasn't even made for the
present purpose. It just happened to come at exactly the peak of internet
hype, and be discovered by clever marketing people. JIT? wow. VM? wow...
OOP? wow... 

- Douglas Engelbart's stuff has still to be incarnated at the right moment.

And one might mention C and C++, COBOL, etc. And VHS perhaps. Etc. etc.

It was really a miracle that the Mac caught on. It was way ahead of time
wrt. market acceptance. Remember "mouse/GUI is a toy", anyone?

> It turns out that you could probably manufacture this in large numbers for
> around $250, which sounds great until you find out that you would need to
> charge retail customers maybe three times that in order to have a survivable
> business plan. And now you find out that your target customer base is only
> really willing to go for $400 or so. What to do?

The third wave is still waiting to happen. The Palm might be on the above
list. It is hardly any better than those before it, for example wrt. hand
writing recognition as Alan pointed out before. The Newton was way too
early, and hence, too big, too slow, too expensive--and no market acceptance
for it at the time either.

So people hardly choose the "fair winner" product; this is quite obvious.
And no one regrets this fact more than I do. No wonder people hate computers
and other hi tech, since what they know of and meet is so poorly done.

I am not at all sure that the time is ready for the third wave yet. In five
or ten years, maybe. I would have thought the portables would have to
replace most part of PCs first. But esp. mobile phone companies are riding
on the "wireless internet" hype right now, to expand their saturating
market. So who knows. But people don't seem to need them yet. In five to ten
years maybe. The techies need to appropriate them a few years earlier, like
cell phones, of course.

So Tim, the price point will probably be there in a few years. And I'm
sorry, but being the best does nothing to help. Sorry. Ask Bill Gates, for
example. But for heaven's sake, don't tell anyone it runs Smalltalk, because
No One Can Use That, Seriously. Why not join transmeta, to let them do the
hyping and ride their hype wave, allowing you to concentrate on what you
want to do?

You're not the only one who would have loved the original PARC attitude to
still exist somewhere.

Just my two mexican cents.

Henrik