Re: The joy of actual numbers, was Democracy

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 08:56:07 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 02/11/2024 19:32, rbowman wrote:

On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 11:18:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
 

Americans aren't really that good at inventing stuff.
>
What they are good at is taking a design and throwing money at it to
create a mass produced product that will sell to an enormous
marketplace that all speaks the same language. Mostly.

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions
 
We've come up with a few things, like cupcakes and candy corn.

 
The point is you don't actually *need* to come up with anything. Let
Europe and Japan do the hard thinky stuff, and then just buy the rights
to the technology once it looks like working.
 
Who did Bill Gates buy MSDOS from?

Seattle Computer Products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Computer_Products

That itself was a simple twist of fate:

https://bookjelly.com/the-tragic-story-of-gary-kildall/

CP/M-86 was arguably a superior OS but couldn't compete.