Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
“I was on a skiing vacation with my family when I got a telephone call from Andy Grove at Intel,” recalls Charlie Sporck, CEO of National, in his book SPINOFF, “Andy said microprocessor sales were so strong that Intel needed a second source. I went back to the office, discussed the proposal with others and the told Andy we weren’t interested. we were so enraptured with our own product (the 16000) that we couldn’t see the value of co-operating with Intel.”
Later, Sporck reflected: “We should have collapsed our in-house CPU effort and grabbed the Intel offer.”
“It wasn’t the first time we turned down an opportunity to work with Intel,” adds Sporck, “I can remember a time in the early 1970s, when Intel was going through a difficult period, especially in manufacturing. Bob Noyce came up with the idea of putting Intel and National together. Noyce thought that he could be chairman of the company and I could be CEO.”
As for the 1600, “nothing significant came out of it,” says Sporck, “our CPU never went into a personal computer where all the volume was.”
Yes inded Big Softie that’s what I would have thought too.
Hmmm….hindsight is truly wonderful, as is speculation on how things might have turned out if only NatSemi had taken Intel’s offer way back then.
There would have been more competition for the sockets, so that would have driven the price down and the volume up quicker than actually happened. Profits would have been less meaning lower R&D investment. Intel’s major USP has always relied on pushing the performance envelope which is hideously expensive, so that would have suffered.
So…….by now PCs would be cheaper but less nippy?