An Academic QL Case Study by The
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J S _ The Open University Technology A Third Level Course EJ 4* Z7 London Borough of Newham Library Service FOBD 696B O8 557 This book must be returned (or its issue renewed) on or betore the last date stamped above BLOCK 2 MARKETING SINCLAIR’S QL MICROCOMPUTER BRITISH TELECOM’S PRESTEL 31Z)Lf: 34-i4] 373-86 SINCLAIR’S QL MICROCOMPUTER Prepared on behalf of the Course Team by Godfrey Boyle Design and Innovation The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA This text consists of two case studies on the marketing First published 1986 of high-technology innovations. It forms part of an Copyright © 1986 The Open University Open University course entitled T362: Design and All rights reserved, No part of this work may be reproduced Innovation, which examines the processes of design in any form by mimeograph or any other means, without and innovation under a variety of industrial, permission in writing from the publisher commercial, social and political circumstances. Designed by the Graphic Design Group of the A full list of aims and objectives for these case Open University studies, together with self-assessment questions Printed by Thomson Litho Ltd, East Kilbride, Scotland (SAQs) and references to relevant articles in the ISBN 0 335 17272 5 Course Reader (Roy, R. and Wield, D. (eds.) (1985) This text forms part of an Open University course. A Product design and technological innovation, The complete list of units in the course is given at the end of this Open University Press) can be found in the Study text Guide for Block 2 of the course. For general availability of supporting material referred to in this text please write to: Open University Educational Enterprises Limited, 12 Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes, MK1 11 BY, Great Britain Further information on Open University courses may be obtained from: The Admissions Office, The Open University, P0 Box 48, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AB 1.1 CONTENTS PREFACE 5 4.5 BUSINESS USERS 30 4.6 EDUCATION 32 BEGINNERS START HERE 5 4.7 PRICING THE OL 32 STUDY NOTES 9 4.8 LAUNCHING THE QL: MATCHING SUPPLY AND DEMAND 32 1 INTRODUCTION 9 4.9 OVERSEAS MARKETS 33 1.1 AIMS 11 5 RE-LAUNCHING THE QL 34 2 SINCLAIR RESEARCH: A BRIEF 5.1 MARKET SATURATION AND PRICE WAR 34 HISTORY 12 5.2 FINANCIAL DISASTER STRIKES 37 2.1 SINCLAIR RADIONICS 12 5.3 RE-LAUNCHING AND RE-MARKETING 38 22 SINCLAIR RESEARCH 15 5.4 THE MAXWELL ‘TAKEOVER’ 40 3 DESIGNING THE QL 18 5.5 SINCLAIR GOES IT ALONE 41 3.1 CHOICE OF CENTRAL 6 BEYONDTHEQL 43 MICROPROCESSOR 19 3.2 MASS MEMORY STORAGE 19 6.1 THE ‘ONE-PER-DESK’ 43 3.3 OPERATING SYSTEM 20 6.2 WAFER-SCALE INTEGRATION 44 3.4 SOFTWARE PACKAGES 21 6.3 THE ‘FIFTH GENERATION’ 45 3.5 SUPERBASIC 22 6.4 EXPERT SYSTEMS 45 3.6 PHYSICAL DESIGN 23 6.5 SOME QUESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 46 4 MARKETING THE QL 26 REFERENCES 48 4.1 MARKET RESEARCH 26 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 48 4.2 TARGET MARKETS 27 4.3 MARKETING 28 4.4 THE HOME USER 28 PREFACE In this block, the main emphasis is on marketing, and the product or service was conceived, designed and in particular on how companies try to assess the likely developed, how the likely market for it was market demand for their product or services. researched, and how it actually fared in the market The two case studies we have chosen lie in the place. information technology field. They examine how two Finally, in both cases, we provide some British companies, namely Sinclair Research and assessment of the success of the marketing strategies British Telecom, designed, developed and marketed, that were adopted; some comments on likely respectively, the QL microcomputer and the Prestel developments in the future; and some general information service. conclusions. These are explored further in the Block 2 Both case studies start with general technical Study Guide, which is intended to be read in introductions, outlining the basic technical background conjunction with these case studies. you will need. This is followed by an account of how BEGINNERS START HERE If you know little or nothing about microcomputers, writing the programs in a code known as a you should start here. And even if you do know computer language. There are literally hundreds something about micros, it might still be a good idea to of different languages around, the most popular read quickly through this preliminary section, because of these being Basic. Basic is an acronym of it should help to refresh your memory of some of the Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction basic terms and concepts. Of course, if you really are Code. Although orginally intended as a simple a microcomputing expert, you can skip this section introductory language, Basic is now a powerful entirely. I should stress, however, that it is not and widely used language in its own right. necessary to understand fully all the aspects of Other common languages are Forth, Pascal, microcomputing that are touched on here. T362 is a Logo, C and Coma!, to name but a few. These are course on innovation, not computing, and the aim here known as high-level languages because they is simply to give non-technical readers a better ‘feel’ approach the sophistication of a human language. for the subject matter of the QL case study proper. You may also see references to low-level The rest of this section consists of an edited languages, assembly language and machine reprint of a ‘newcomers’ guide’ originally published in code. We’ll look at these in a moment. Personal Computer World in May 1985. The heart of a micro, the workhorse, is the processor or Central Processing Unit (CPU). The processor usually consists of a single silicon Micro Jargon chip. As with computer languages, there are a For those completely new to computing, let’s start number of different types of processor available, with the question: what is a microcomputer? We the Z80, 6502, 68000 and 8088 being just a handful think of a micro as: a general-purpose device in (literally!) of the types in common use. The contrast to a typewriter, which can only be used processor is nothing magical — it’s just a bunch of for typing; a calculator, for performing electronic circuits. It’s definitely not a brain. calculations; a filing cabinet, for filing The processor’s circuitry can be in one of two information. A micro can do all of these and more. states: on or off. We represent these two states by If it’s to be of any use a general-purpose binary (base two) notation, the two binary digits device needs some way of knowing what to do. (known as bits) being 0 and 1. It’s possible to We can tell a micro what to do by giving it a set of program computers in binary notation, otherwise logical instructions, called a program. The general known as machine code (or machine language) term for computer programs is software. Every programming. other part of a microcomputer system is known as Machine code is called a ‘low level’ language hardware. because it operates at a level close to that ‘understood’ by the processor. Languages like Programming Basic are known as ‘high level’ languages because they are symbolic, operating at a level Programs must be written in a form the micro can easily understood by people but not directly understand and act on — this is achieved by understood by the processor. 5 Between high level languages and machine Memory code is a low level language known as assembly language or, colloquially, assembler. This is a So far, we have a processor and a program. Since mnemonic code using symbols which the a computer needs somewhere to store programs processor can quickly convert to machine code. and data, it needs some kind of memory. There Since everything has to be converted into are two types of memory: Read Only Memory binary form before the processor can make sense (ROM) and the badly named Random Access of it, we need some sort of code to represent each Memory (RAM). ROM is so called because the character to be processed by the computer. In processor can ‘read’ (get things out of) its order to simplify communication between contents, but cannot ‘write to’ (put things in) it. computers, a number of standard codes have ROM is used to store firmware, the name been agreed on. The most widely used of these given to software permanently available on the codes is the American Standard Code for machine. An interpreter is a typical example of Information Interchange, ASCII. This system firmware (stick with it: it gets easier!). assigns each character a decimal number which RAM differs from ROM in two important ways. the processor can then convert to its binary Firstly, you can write to it as well as read from it. equivalent. This means that the processor can use it to store A program written in a high level language both the program it is running and data must be converted into binary before the (information). The second important difference is processor can carry out its instructions. We could that RAM needs a constant power supply to retain of course do this manually, but since this is its contents: as soon as you switch the computer exactly the sort of tedious job computers were off, you lose your program and data. designed to do for us, it makes much more sense There is a type of RAM, known as CMOS to write a program to do it.