Arfa Daily wrote:
It's a bit of a shame really, as all of these brands built up huge amounts
of respect over the years, and they are firmly ingrained in people's
memories from when they were kids.

The first company to do that was Packard Bell. Packard Bell was a well
known brand name in the U.S., probably made up by combining two other
well known brands Packard (automobiles) and Bell (telephones). They died
out in the 1950s or 1960s.

In the late 1970s there were many name brands for Microcomputers (the
term PC was not coined yet), for example, Apple, IMSAI, Altair, Sorcerer
and so on. There were also brand names such as IBM (yes, the had a desktop
computer before the IBM PC) and so on. There were also names like the
Kaypro, Osborne (named after Adam Osborne), COMPAQ (a play on the word
compact) which was a PC compatible, but not an exact copy (clone).

When PC clones became possible and they became common items, someone
bought the name Packard Bell from whomever owned it and used it for
computers. They were smart, they never claimed their computers were
descended from the radio company, they just disclaimed it had anything
to do with the Bell System, and that "America had grown up with Packard
Bell" which implied it was the same company.

Not all brands names were diluted as they are today, about 10 years ago
I bought a stereo system made by "Sherwood Newcastle". It was supposed to
be made in Newcastle, England by a company that was descended from the
original Sherwood company, while the name Sherwood was used for Korean
products.

It was robost and well made, however it suffered from component failures
after about five years. I eventually found someone localy who could fix
it, but it was never 100% after that.

Geoff.

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Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
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