TECH-TALK
But what...is it good for?
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of
IBM, 1968; commenting on the microchip.
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp., 1977
This "telephone" has too many shortcomings to be seriously
considered as a means of communication. The device is
inherently of no value to us.
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
So we went to Atari and said, "Hey, we've got this amazing
thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you
think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want
to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you." And they
said, "No." So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they
said,"Hey,we don't need you. You haven't got through college
yet."
-- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to
get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's
personal computer.
The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value.
Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings
for investment in the radio in the 1920s.
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
-- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the
experiment. The literature was full of examples that said
you can't do this.
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique
adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.
Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action
and reaction and the need to have something better than a
vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic
knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
-- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's
revolutionary rocket work.
You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development
across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact
of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle
development as an unalterable condition of weight training.
-- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable"
problem by inventing Nautilus.
The Americans may have need of the telegraph. We, on the
other hand, have plenty of messenger boys.
-- a British Lord, dismissing telecommunications out of
hand.
Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and
find oil? You're crazy.
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
project to drill for oil in 1859.
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
-- Bill Gates, 1981
Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole
Superieure de Guerre.
The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut
from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.
-- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed
Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of
Patents, 1899.
Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction"
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872