Re: Moving a hard drive w/ a Gateway-installed OEM Windows XP to a new mobo

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Chuck wrote:
>    4. Re: Moving a hard drive w/ a Gateway-installed OEM Windows    XP
>       to a new mobo (Chuck Lewis)
>
> Who did you work for Tom and what did you do there ?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> <snip>
> And I see later comments that discuss CDs tied to manufacturers...
> those make some sense (having worked a couple years for one of those
> manufacturers).

Chuck:

I worked 3 years for NEC/Packard Bell in Sacramento as a systems
programmer. The Packard Bell brand was a department-store IBM clone
rather than a brand sold in computer stores. Not terrible, not good.
Cheap and easy to get hold of at its beginning. Built for people who 
had no real idea why they wanted a "computer" in the house so they'd 
be unwilling to speak to a serious computer equipment salesperson. 
Probably got too successful too fast; they got way behind in trying 
to keep up with support calls from the mass marketing business 
model. Then the Northridge earthquake clobbered their Southern 
California support center and plant. They'd started a slow 
improvement, but pretty much got knocked out for good from that (in 
the U.S.A. at least).

NEC, of course, is NEC. (Man, you shoulda seen some of their GOOD 
stuff! Never did see some of their incredible monitors outside of 
the main headquarters building.) Intriguing contrast between the two 
-- low priced consumer PCs and higher priced NECs.

Quite a data center. The main developer area just outside had some 
100 RPG developers plus a bunch of PC and network people. The 
manufacturing plant was huge; the largest PC manufacturing facility 
in the world at the time.

They'd moved everything up to Sacramento after the quake, trying get
their support problems worked out. But they couldn't ever recover 
after the quake destroyed even the progress they'd started. Already 
in a economic recovery mode, then earthquake crumples buildings, 
then get it all going again in a new location. Just getting the 
parts moving down the line necessarily introduced more problems as 
things sorted into place. Every task had to be completed on tight 
schedules, no margin for error, not to mention almost no profit 
margin anyway. Naturally when any little thing went wrong, it 
magnified greatly.

My work was systems work covering Y2K and preparing for the plant
conversion. There was no way to remain associated with the name 
"Packard Bell" in the U.S., so the whole business model was dropped 
and they converted over to 'white box' manufacturing. Most fun 
project was setting up for Circuit City kiosks linking directly back 
into our AS/400 systems, letting customers enter/track orders. I'd 
never done any sockets stuff before. But then, I still knew more 
about TCP/IP than the AS/400 developers at that time. Got our side 
up and running weeks before CC got theirs going. (And they were 
giving us their specs for their protocols.)

I left at the end of January 2000. Y2K went past cleanly and the 
whole business was set to change starting in February. By 
mid-December, I'd already agreed to a new job where I am now. AFAIK, 
the plant is now churning out various kinds of OEM boxes for 
whatever company wants them.

If nothing else, I got to be involved with discussions about what 
it's like for PC manufacturers who wanted to do anything that MS 
didn't like. Quite a different side from the general perspective up 
here around Seattle.

Tom Liotta