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What happened to Transmeta, the last big dotcom IPO

(dfarq.homeip.net)
180 points onename | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 09:01 UTC | HN request time: 0.207s | source
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Theodores ◴[12 Nov 25 11:43 UTC] No.45898968[source]▶
I liked the Transmeta web page from before they launched. It was just bare HTML with no styling. It said:

  This page is not here yet.
The product hype and lack of knowledge about what it was meant that nobody knew what to expect. In these hyped expectations, and with Torvalds on board, everyone expected that everything would be different. But it wasn't.

A similar product launch was the Segway, where we went from this incredible vision of everyone on Segways to nobody wanting one.

The hype was part of the problem with Transmeta. Even in it's delivered form it could have found a niche. For example, the network computer was in vogue at the time, thanks to Oracle. A different type of device, like a Chromebook might have worked.

With Torvalds connected to Transmeta and the stealthy development, we never did get to hear about who was really behind Transmeta and why.

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tyingq ◴[12 Nov 25 12:10 UTC] No.45899196[source]▶
https://web.archive.org/web/19970710102251/http://www.transm...

Then, https://web.archive.org/web/20000229173916/http://www.transm... , when content appeared around Feb 2000.

Product launch PDF from Jan 19, 2000: https://web.archive.org/web/20000815231116/http://www.transm...

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1. Theodores ◴[12 Nov 25 12:26 UTC] No.45899312[source]▶
Thanks for that, I was almost right - This web page is not here yet.

I still use this as important placeholder text, not that anyone outside HN would get the reference.