So, you have already done some of the work here with some of your videos (Dell, Gateway), but there were an absolute ton of PC manufacturers in the 90s. Obviously some of them were going to go away because there were simply too many fishermen and not enough fish.

However, there must be some reason some of the companies who were doing really well and made really good PCs failed to capitalize on the great products they were selling.

I grew up fairly poor and I remember our first PC purchase. It was a multi-month long process for my parents who were not very computer literate or savvy. The tons of options available back then made the decision so much harder for them because it was going to cost a lot for our family and we needed the computer to be reliable for our school needs, both for my sister and me, and also my mother, who went back to college to reenter the teaching profession.

I know my family wasn’t alone when it came to this decision and it would be great to hear your description of that era and the PC marketplace in general.

We ended up going with a Micron, although we were close to buying a Quantex. Both companies made great machines and both did not last to survive the PC wars. Quantex made excellent high quality machines but they came at a higher price point, which is why we opted for Micron. Funny enough, the Micron we purchased (I think a 133 MHz) ended up have a faulty motherboard, but the company immediately replaced it with a better 150 Mhz computer at no additional cost. That’s great customer service you don’t see as much, but they still did not last.

Other PC manufactures of interest:
Packard Bell
Compaq
Magnavox
NEC
Northgate
Sharp
Samsung
Sony
Tandy
TI
Toshiba
Zenith

There are so many more but maybe you choose a handful if there are any good examples of great decisions versus bad decisions, or perhaps some were just bigger and could survive the attrition.