#ThrowBackThursday What does a cattle ranch have in common with computers? Admittedly not much, but that didn't stop two college dropouts from capitalizing on the concept and reshape PC purchases in the 1990s.
Gateway 2000: Gone But Not Forgotten
- Thread starter Shawn Knight
- Start date
Uncle Al
Posts: 10,170 +9,648
Man I remember my old gateway computer. It was fast and easy to work on .... I only wish computer companies nowadays would follow that old example ...... sigh
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Wizwill
Posts: 129 +61
In early 2000 I became a system admin in a small company with 20 computers, nearly all Gateways and every single one built with a grossly-undersized power supply (less than 200 watts for a full size desktop). These units 'browned out' when attempting to watch the Internet while backing up the hard drive.
Luckily I was able to get Gateway to accept the the return of several of the newer systems in exchange for more robust units.
Luckily I was able to get Gateway to accept the the return of several of the newer systems in exchange for more robust units.
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USAvenger
Posts: 149 +248
I did Gateway phone tech support via a contractor called Service Zone between the summer of 2001 and 2002. At $9 an hour, it was a high-paying part-time job for a college student in the South. I learned a lot in that year as a tech for Gateway and am undoubtedly in a better place now because of it. R.I.P.
OptimumSlinky
Posts: 276 +510
"“They overmanaged and screwed it up. They did things short-term to make the income sheet look better, which damaged the balance sheet, which sold the future of the business. So, when times got tough, there wasn't as much to rely on.” – Ted Waitt, late 2007"
Companies to this day make this mistake over, and over again. Compromising long-term strategy and growth for quarterly performance and stock price boosts is unsustainable, and it almost always leads to the destruction of the company.
Companies to this day make this mistake over, and over again. Compromising long-term strategy and growth for quarterly performance and stock price boosts is unsustainable, and it almost always leads to the destruction of the company.
Goat11
Posts: 25 +58
This isn't a mistake, it's a modern "business plan" which aims to rip off investors and customers.
Prosercunus
Posts: 358 +283
defaultluser
Posts: 527 +397
I supported Gateway systems during my last two years at college (the school had a deal with them to provide PC to faculty, and sell to new students, and we were able to order part replacements direct)
Their integrated graphics systems were just fine, but once they started shipping systems with Voodoo 3 cards (around 2000), the poor case airflow really started to hurt their performance/stability (there were no front case air holes. nor a case fan)
By that time, even Dell had finally acknowledged the need for a case fan for expansion cards/Pentium 4s. Gateway was always trying to cut costs, and ended-up with Acer + eMachines like they deserved.
I'm glad I didn't buy any Gateway systems, as they had a lot better competition by 1997...but I imagine they were unbeatable back in the 80s
Their integrated graphics systems were just fine, but once they started shipping systems with Voodoo 3 cards (around 2000), the poor case airflow really started to hurt their performance/stability (there were no front case air holes. nor a case fan)
By that time, even Dell had finally acknowledged the need for a case fan for expansion cards/Pentium 4s. Gateway was always trying to cut costs, and ended-up with Acer + eMachines like they deserved.
I'm glad I didn't buy any Gateway systems, as they had a lot better competition by 1997...but I imagine they were unbeatable back in the 80s
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Thank you for the walk down memory lane. I had two Gateways and LOVED them. It is my (uninformed) opinion that their downfall was the move from the Midwest to San Diego. Seeing as they had already moved across the Iowa - SD state line to lower costs, what was the explanation for that move to California?
Chemicalfaerie
Posts: 59 +47
Short funny story. My college in WAY northern California had thousands of these machines. I had friends in the computer dept as it was called then. When I moved out after college I got about 50 or so of these boxes to pack up my life and move. My GF and I were pulled over in some hick town on our way and they wanted to see in the truck because they thought we were shipping the major export of the area we came from. Needless to say, it was a different conversation when they were greeted by the sheer wall of cow boxes in the back of the truck. Ultimately they laughed it off and let us go after a cursory search of a few random boxes.
Needless to say, it was a different conversation when they were greeted by the sheer wall of cow boxes in the back of the truck. Ultimately they laughed it off and let us go after a cursory search of a few random boxes.
Draconian
Posts: 158 +63
I remember going into the Gateway store in Spokane, Washington to buy a new Pentium III 500 MHz PC. That was to replace my old Packard-Bell Pentium 133 MHz PC which was struggling to run Ultima Online.
KnightSayNI
Posts: 11 +12
I loved the black and white dairy cow boxes. Getting my 486DX2 66 MHz was exciting. Was cool browsing thru Cinemania 95 and watching video on a small PC. And Myst was great also.
I so wish I had kept just a couple Computer Shopper's from the 1980's. It was what we had instead of the internet back then. An inch or more thick, mostly newspaper thin pages of ads after ads after ads. With a few articles thrown in. including ads/reviews from Gateway. It was as fun for me to look thru those as the comics in the Sunday paper.
Does anyone have a PDF scan of a couple issues?
Does anyone have a PDF scan of a couple issues?
RickRick
Posts: 21 +28
We had a couple of Gateway's. Still have the boxes in our attic!
zamroni111
Posts: 446 +249
Another example of company failed by sales people who become sales people because they are actually not good in technology
Yeah. Intel sounds like a very good example of this.
Farkinell
Posts: 244 +399
Not quite a PDF but if you have twitter you can follow the account @yorecomputer which just posts scans of old PC magazines
I came to comment on just this. I was doing tech support for gateway during that period, and I know that at least part of their woes came from the 2 new lines of desktops they introduced at that time. one was a budget desktop, and the other was an "all-in-one" system meant to compete with the imac. both had power supplies of such low wattage that they could just barely handle booting up, and as you said, use of the modem would cause them to reboot randomly. I don't know what in-house tech support was doing, I worked for a 3rd party contractor, but in my call center, within a week, it was just standard. if they had one of those, and they were calling about it rebooting when they used the modem, no troubleshooting needed. just ask them a couple of leading questions about whether they feel comfortable about opening up their system and replacing the ps if we sent them a new one (which 99% did not) or if they had a gateway country store in their area they could take it to (which 99% did not), and that's a field tech order, to replace a power supply that should never have been in that machine to begin with. I guarantee, once that's taken into consideration, those two products killed gateway dead.
Sadly true. What's worse is when people are brought on board to execute this exact "business plan", cause all sorts of damage, and then move on to their next gig. Richer and never held accountable.
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