In essence – and, later, when discussing it with Stephen and Ray, it made more sense – the story was this. Reuters were developing an IBM PC compatible terminal based on the Intel 80386. It was claimed to be the smallest footprint PC clone in the world and would display a live digital video feed inside a window, enabling traders to watch Reuters’ news channel while they were buying and selling shares. IDR asked Intel if they had a chip that would support video in Windows, and it was suggested they partnered in the development of the 82786 graphics processor. When the chips arrived, over 1,000 in the first batch, they, as promised, supported live video, but monochrome not colour. An embarrassing mistake, but who better to fix it than a company tucked away in a small market town in the UK that no one had heard of, and didn’t include a customer list in its brochure? …
… (An extract from The Ghost in the Labyrinth by Peter Kruger)
