So, looking this over, I really hope Ben Zotto checked to make sure that the name and logo weren't still owned by someone. It'd be a shame for someone doing good historical work to attacked by a random troll.
The early microcomputer market had three kinds of companies:
- those with organic growth, where the sales of products financed the development of new products: MITS, IMSAI, Sphere, Ohio Scientific, SWTPC, Cromemco, Processor Technology, etc
- those that were part of a larger company: Radio Shack, Commodore, Texas Instruments and Atari-Warner
- those that were financed by venture capital: Apple
In retrospect, the companies in the first group were doomed to not become an Apple. Later on we got many more venture capital based computer companies, with Compaq among the most famous.
In the case of Sphere it had many more problems than just how it was financed. They got an early reputation for not delivering at all or shipping non working products.
What was special about Sphere was that from a technical point of view it was a generation ahead of the competition: with a built-in screen it was more like a Commodore Pet or a Radio Shack TRS-80 from 1977 than like the boxes with LEDs and toggle switches from its peers in 1975.
I got that vibe too. I wasn't alive in the 70's but I can only assume there were 50 different companies that built their own computer and "could have been Apple". From this link it's not clear what was different about them but it does seem like a cool dive into history
I was born 80 so it's a little before my time but pretty much.
Personal Computers where an absolutely gold rush once people realised it was "going to be the next big thing" lots of companies had to have a Computing Division even if it seemed a bit weird for that company to have an AI division, oops my bad Computing Division.
In reality what happened was the vast majority of them went splat in short order and a handful of makers reached market in volume and once software started for the ones who did it became self re-enforcing - people wrote software for machines that sold well because they had good software.
In my era/part of the world the PC wasn't even a thing at home for most people until the mid 90's, if you had a computer at home in the late 80's/early 90's it was going to be a ZX Spectrum/C64 or if your parents had money Atari ST/Amiga.
It was an exciting time in the 80's (once I was old enough to use computers) because the world hadn't yet consolidated on PC/Apple *and everyone else* off in the margins.
Somewhat related, if you like this stuff or early computers, Halt and Catch Fire is an amazing TV show that nails computing in the 80's into the early 90's.
I was born in 90, and your post sent me down memory lane. When I was still in diapers my parents put a lien on their house so my mom could get a 486 machine, learn Lotus 1-2-3, and get a better job. One of my earliest memories is watching it boot up, seeing all the BIOS text that I couldn't read or understand scrolling across the screen, and wondering what that machine was thinking about to get itself all the way to Hard Drivin' or Wolf 3D. I asked my mom many years later why she didn't just get a C64, and she scoffed and asserted it was a cheap piece of junk made to play crappy games. The PC was a serious business machine for adults.
It was the wrong shape for its name.
You may prefer the ABS Orb
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5424/Orb-Computer-Th...
http://www.vintage-icl-computers.com/icl53t
I had never heard of them before but immediately thought: “I love it, what a cool name!”. Sphere and computer feels like such a juxtaposition
Missed opportunity for the virtual Sphere to work on mobile via the keyboard in the graphics!
So, looking this over, I really hope Ben Zotto checked to make sure that the name and logo weren't still owned by someone. It'd be a shame for someone doing good historical work to attacked by a random troll.
According to Wikipedia the company disappeared in 1975, so these trademarks are long since abandoned.
Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45662284
They could have been the Apple!
The early microcomputer market had three kinds of companies:
- those with organic growth, where the sales of products financed the development of new products: MITS, IMSAI, Sphere, Ohio Scientific, SWTPC, Cromemco, Processor Technology, etc
- those that were part of a larger company: Radio Shack, Commodore, Texas Instruments and Atari-Warner
- those that were financed by venture capital: Apple
In retrospect, the companies in the first group were doomed to not become an Apple. Later on we got many more venture capital based computer companies, with Compaq among the most famous.
In the case of Sphere it had many more problems than just how it was financed. They got an early reputation for not delivering at all or shipping non working products.
What was special about Sphere was that from a technical point of view it was a generation ahead of the competition: with a built-in screen it was more like a Commodore Pet or a Radio Shack TRS-80 from 1977 than like the boxes with LEDs and toggle switches from its peers in 1975.
I got that vibe too. I wasn't alive in the 70's but I can only assume there were 50 different companies that built their own computer and "could have been Apple". From this link it's not clear what was different about them but it does seem like a cool dive into history
I was born 80 so it's a little before my time but pretty much.
Personal Computers where an absolutely gold rush once people realised it was "going to be the next big thing" lots of companies had to have a Computing Division even if it seemed a bit weird for that company to have an AI division, oops my bad Computing Division.
In reality what happened was the vast majority of them went splat in short order and a handful of makers reached market in volume and once software started for the ones who did it became self re-enforcing - people wrote software for machines that sold well because they had good software.
In my era/part of the world the PC wasn't even a thing at home for most people until the mid 90's, if you had a computer at home in the late 80's/early 90's it was going to be a ZX Spectrum/C64 or if your parents had money Atari ST/Amiga.
It was an exciting time in the 80's (once I was old enough to use computers) because the world hadn't yet consolidated on PC/Apple *and everyone else* off in the margins.
Somewhat related, if you like this stuff or early computers, Halt and Catch Fire is an amazing TV show that nails computing in the 80's into the early 90's.
I was born in 90, and your post sent me down memory lane. When I was still in diapers my parents put a lien on their house so my mom could get a 486 machine, learn Lotus 1-2-3, and get a better job. One of my earliest memories is watching it boot up, seeing all the BIOS text that I couldn't read or understand scrolling across the screen, and wondering what that machine was thinking about to get itself all the way to Hard Drivin' or Wolf 3D. I asked my mom many years later why she didn't just get a C64, and she scoffed and asserted it was a cheap piece of junk made to play crappy games. The PC was a serious business machine for adults.
According to a Steve Jobs interview, it was VisiCalc driving Apple II sales that set them apart from competitors.