Truong Trong Thi interview (fwd)

[Ho Tu Bao <bao@jaist.ac.jp>]

> From: owner-vnit-l@coombs.anu.edu.au

*******Microcomputer Inventor Truong Makes A Comeback 05/21/97

by Arman Danesh
   IT Daily

HONG KONG -- At Comdex France in February this year, Andre Thi Truong,
the 61-year-old creator of the first microcomputer, moved among the
crowd in near anonymity. Perhaps it is the American-centrism of the
personal computing industry, but Truong's pioneering achievement - his
company, R2E, created the first microcomputer in 1973, according to the
Boston Computer Museum, years before the Altair 9000 - is generally
unknown or ignored.

Later, Truong's company ended up becoming a manufacturer of
IBM-compatible PCs once the PC revolution started. After selling his
company in 1989, Truong served as a technical consultant to various
governments and companies around the world.

But Truong's restless nature eventually led him, more than two decades
later after inventing the first PC, back to the cutting edge of
personal computing. He is the president of Advanced PC Technologies
(APCT), which launched the first working Network PC - a Wintel-based
Network Computer - at Comdex Las Vegas last November.

Computers are not the only interesting story in Truong's life. Born in
Vietnam when it was still a French colony, Truong came from an elite
family.  He studied electrical engineering in France in the 1950s and,
as a result of the Vietnamese revolt against French rule, has lived in
Paris ever since.

Truong is jovial, vibrant, full of life and unassuming. And he is not
short of opinions about the history, present and future of the computer
industry.

TRUONG: The R2E was created in 1971 using the first Intel
(microprocessor).  We made a microcomputer - a term first used by
ComputerWorld in 1973. The product was the Micral, which is now in the
Computer Museum in Boston. We had big success in France, and merged
with Bull (another PC maker) in 1978.  We started a US subsidiary in
Minnesota that year, but it was very difficult to market after IBM came
out with the PC in 1981. In the end, we made the decision in France to
make IBM-compatible computers, but Bull didn't want to do this. I left
the company at the end of 1982 and started another company called
Normarel. In 1984, we came out with the first European PC compatible
computer. It was a big success. In 1989, we sold the company to the
employees because the president didn't want to continue.

NEWSBYTES: Why should people want or need an NPC?

TRUONG: First, most PCs are getting more and more fat - I am talking
about the big software applications. Second, the cost of administration
is running very high. So when Larry Ellison came out with the NC
concept two years ago, I thought it was very good.

NEWSBYTES: Why haven't you gone the route of the NC (which uses the
Java language and generally runs on non-Intel chips)?

TRUONG: We need NCs, but the NC that the group of five (NC consortium,
including Oracle, IBM, Sun and others) has done will never succeed for
several reasons. First, there are several NCs. You have the Oracle NC,
the Sun NC and so on. All of them have different CPUs, different OSes.
They will never be uniform. Unlike Network Computers proposed by
Oracle, Sun and IBM, the Network PC is meant to both operate
stand-alone and through the Internet or intranet. In the "L-shaped"
console is a CD-ROM drive which can boot the NPC from a special Windows
NT CD. The same CD also holds several applications. The upright part of
the "L" holds a custom motherboard with a 100 MHz Pentium CPU and
built-in audio.

Basic configuration also includes 16 MB of RAM, EEPROM for
configuration storage, a smart card reader, and optional flash ROM for
local storage of user data. Because the NPC does not need a hard drive,
it can be manufactured for about US$200. Like Oracle, APCT does not
want to manufacture most of the Net PCs, but is instead licensing the
technology to other hardware companies. Retail price should be under
$500.

NEWSBYTES: What about the argument that we are moving to
platform-independent software with Java and so on, and it doesn't
matter on what the software or hardware rests?

TRUONG: That is a very good idea. But do you know on which machine Java
runs best? Wintel. We need only one platform: Intel and Microsoft. Java
is an excellent idea, but when Java was written a few years ago, it was
for very small applets. They are now trying to use Java for very
serious applications. You cannot load an applet of 1 MB with Java. When
you are working on a client/server application, you want an immediate
answer - you cannot do that in Java.

The second reason is that I don't think we need multiple platforms.
Today, there are only two hardware platforms - Pentium, PowerPC, and
maybe Alpha.  PowerPC and Alpha are dead. As for OSes, you have
Windows, OS/2 and Unix.  OS/2 is dead. Maybe you can have Unix on the
server, but not on the client.  The second mistake they (the group of
five NC vendors) made is that you cannot in 1995 start to develop a new
OS. It is impossible. People are talking about the NC's low price. Our
Net PC is the same price. We have a CPU, we have memory, and we have
added the CD-ROM. On the CD, you have the NT operating system and also
all the applications protected with a smart card.

NEWSBYTES: So you feel Windows NT is destined to be the desktop OS?

TRUONG: Definitely, because Windows 95 is not good for professional
applications. It is insecure. This is very important. I definitely
think NT and Windows will merge somewhere in 1998. If you remember,
Windows NT 3.1 needed 32 MB, but today NT 4.0 only needs 16 MB.

With the NPC, we are targeting the intranet business and what we call
the professional Internet. Next year, we will come out with an NPC
(aimed at home users) with MMX. We are also working on some very
special display technology, and we are working with all the components
of DirectX.

NEWSBYTES: Do people find the CD-ROM drive fast enough? TRUONG: We are
not trying to compete with the PC. We are only developing this for one
year. We expect most of our NPCs, after this year, to run on digital
video discs (DVDs).

NEWSBYTES: What about non-English versions of Windows NT?

TRUONG: Today, we are working with English-only, but we will have all
the languages that NT comes with. We are following Microsoft, because
for 20 years everybody who has tried to kill Microsoft is dead. You
have seen how Microsoft has changed direction with the Internet. It's
fabulous.

Truong feels that home computing is moving towards networked computing
- not on-line computing but networks within the home. He also predicts
that slimware will emerge in the face of today's so-called bloatware.

NEWSBYTES: So what will be mainstream in the next five or 10 years?

TRUONG: I think that Moore's law (which predicts that the average of a
CPU's power will double and its cost halve, every 18 months) will hold
for the next 10 years. But if you keep increasing the power of the CPU
and it has MMX, you don't need DSP (digital signal processing) any
more. You just need a good CPU, memory and software. That's it. The
business of the next 10 years is 100 percent software. There will also
be a tendency to go with what people call slimware (software which
takes up less memory and space). It will have to come. They will
definitely have to reduce.

NEWSBYTES: But if the PCs are more powerful and the disks cheaper and
the memory cheaper, why should the software vendors move towards
slimware?

TRUONG: Because we need power for the CPU, not for the software. For
telephony and for videoconferencing, you need the power and the memory
to store information. We will have PC servers in the home. It's coming
soon, because a family will have several PCs, so they will have a
server. We have to have something very easy to administer. Microsoft
will come out with something very easy before the end of the century,
I'm sure.

Concurrent with developing the NPC - which Truong hints is already set
to be licensed to several companies - APCT is developing a new video
technology called Enhanced Image Multiprocessor Technology. At Comdex
Las Vegas last November, Truong wowed on-lookers with holographic-like
video displayed three-and-a-half feet in front of a large screen TV. As
Truong puts it: "We are working to break the limits of VGA with
multiprocessors and two banks of memory for display - we work on one
and display on the other."

Truong says his prototype can "display stereo video at any speed," but
will not be available for broad distribution for 18 months./.


*Microcomputer Inventor Truong Makes A Comeback 05/21/97

by Arman Danesh
   IT Daily

HONG KONG -- At Comdex France in February this year, Andre Thi Truong,
the 61-year-old creator of the first microcomputer, moved among the
crowd in near anonymity. Perhaps it is the American-centrism of the
personal computing industry, but Truong's pioneering achievement - his
company, R2E, created the first microcomputer in 1973, according to the
Boston Computer Museum, years before the Altair 9000 - is generally
unknown or ignored.

Later, Truong's company ended up becoming a manufacturer of
IBM-compatible PCs once the PC revolution started. After selling his
company in 1989, Truong served as a technical consultant to various
governments and companies around the world.

But Truong's restless nature eventually led him, more than two decades
later after inventing the first PC, back to the cutting edge of
personal computing. He is the president of Advanced PC Technologies
(APCT), which launched the first working Network PC - a Wintel-based
Network Computer - at Comdex Las Vegas last November.

Computers are not the only interesting story in Truong's life. Born in
Vietnam when it was still a French colony, Truong came from an elite
family.  He studied electrical engineering in France in the 1950s and,
as a result of the Vietnamese revolt against French rule, has lived in
Paris ever since.

Truong is jovial, vibrant, full of life and unassuming. And he is not
short of opinions about the history, present and future of the computer
industry.

TRUONG: The R2E was created in 1971 using the first Intel
(microprocessor).  We made a microcomputer - a term first used by
ComputerWorld in 1973. The product was the Micral, which is now in the
Computer Museum in Boston. We had big success in France, and merged
with Bull (another PC maker) in 1978.  We started a US subsidiary in
Minnesota that year, but it was very difficult to market after IBM came
out with the PC in 1981. In the end, we made the decision in France to
make IBM-compatible computers, but Bull didn't want to do this. I left
the company at the end of 1982 and started another company called
Normarel. In 1984, we came out with the first European PC compatible
computer. It was a big success. In 1989, we sold the company to the
employees because the president didn't want to continue.

NEWSBYTES: Why should people want or need an NPC?

TRUONG: First, most PCs are getting more and more fat - I am talking
about the big software applications. Second, the cost of administration
is running very high. So when Larry Ellison came out with the NC
concept two years ago, I thought it was very good.

NEWSBYTES: Why haven't you gone the route of the NC (which uses the
Java language and generally runs on non-Intel chips)?

TRUONG: We need NCs, but the NC that the group of five (NC consortium,
including Oracle, IBM, Sun and others) has done will never succeed for
several reasons. First, there are several NCs. You have the Oracle NC,
the Sun NC and so on. All of them have different CPUs, different OSes.
They will never be uniform. Unlike Network Computers proposed by
Oracle, Sun and IBM, the Network PC is meant to both operate
stand-alone and through the Internet or intranet. In the "L-shaped"
console is a CD-ROM drive which can boot the NPC from a special Windows
NT CD. The same CD also holds several applications. The upright part of
the "L" holds a custom motherboard with a 100 MHz Pentium CPU and
built-in audio.

Basic configuration also includes 16 MB of RAM, EEPROM for
configuration storage, a smart card reader, and optional flash ROM for
local storage of user data. Because the NPC does not need a hard drive,
it can be manufactured for about US$200. Like Oracle, APCT does not
want to manufacture most of the Net PCs, but is instead licensing the
technology to other hardware companies. Retail price should be under
$500.

NEWSBYTES: What about the argument that we are moving to
platform-independent software with Java and so on, and it doesn't
matter on what the software or hardware rests?

TRUONG: That is a very good idea. But do you know on which machine Java
runs best? Wintel. We need only one platform: Intel and Microsoft. Java
is an excellent idea, but when Java was written a few years ago, it was
for very small applets. They are now trying to use Java for very
serious applications. You cannot load an applet of 1 MB with Java. When
you are working on a client/server application, you want an immediate
answer - you cannot do that in Java.

The second reason is that I don't think we need multiple platforms.
Today, there are only two hardware platforms - Pentium, PowerPC, and
maybe Alpha.  PowerPC and Alpha are dead. As for OSes, you have
Windows, OS/2 and Unix.  OS/2 is dead. Maybe you can have Unix on the
server, but not on the client.  The second mistake they (the group of
five NC vendors) made is that you cannot in 1995 start to develop a new
OS. It is impossible. People are talking about the NC's low price. Our
Net PC is the same price. We have a CPU, we have memory, and we have
added the CD-ROM. On the CD, you have the NT operating system and also
all the applications protected with a smart card.

NEWSBYTES: So you feel Windows NT is destined to be the desktop OS?

TRUONG: Definitely, because Windows 95 is not good for professional
applications. It is insecure. This is very important. I definitely
think NT and Windows will merge somewhere in 1998. If you remember,
Windows NT 3.1 needed 32 MB, but today NT 4.0 only needs 16 MB.

With the NPC, we are targeting the intranet business and what we call
the professional Internet. Next year, we will come out with an NPC
(aimed at home users) with MMX. We are also working on some very
special display technology, and we are working with all the components
of DirectX.

NEWSBYTES: Do people find the CD-ROM drive fast enough? TRUONG: We are
not trying to compete with the PC. We are only developing this for one
year. We expect most of our NPCs, after this year, to run on digital
video discs (DVDs).

NEWSBYTES: What about non-English versions of Windows NT?

TRUONG: Today, we are working with English-only, but we will have all
the languages that NT comes with. We are following Microsoft, because
for 20 years everybody who has tried to kill Microsoft is dead. You
have seen how Microsoft has changed direction with the Internet. It's
fabulous.

Truong feels that home computing is moving towards networked computing
- not on-line computing but networks within the home. He also predicts
that slimware will emerge in the face of today's so-called bloatware.

NEWSBYTES: So what will be mainstream in the next five or 10 years?

TRUONG: I think that Moore's law (which predicts that the average of a
CPU's power will double and its cost halve, every 18 months) will hold
for the next 10 years. But if you keep increasing the power of the CPU
and it has MMX, you don't need DSP (digital signal processing) any
more. You just need a good CPU, memory and software. That's it. The
business of the next 10 years is 100 percent software. There will also
be a tendency to go with what people call slimware (software which
takes up less memory and space). It will have to come. They will
definitely have to reduce.

NEWSBYTES: But if the PCs are more powerful and the disks cheaper and
the memory cheaper, why should the software vendors move towards
slimware?

TRUONG: Because we need power for the CPU, not for the software. For
telephony and for videoconferencing, you need the power and the memory
to store information. We will have PC servers in the home. It's coming
soon, because a family will have several PCs, so they will have a
server. We have to have something very easy to administer. Microsoft
will come out with something very easy before the end of the century,
I'm sure.

Concurrent with developing the NPC - which Truong hints is already set
to be licensed to several companies - APCT is developing a new video
technology called Enhanced Image Multiprocessor Technology. At Comdex
Las Vegas last November, Truong wowed on-lookers with holographic-like
video displayed three-and-a-half feet in front of a large screen TV. As
Truong puts it: "We are working to break the limits of VGA with
multiprocessors and two banks of memory for display - we work on one
and display on the other."

Truong says his prototype can "display stereo video at any speed," but
will not be available for broad distribution for 18 months./.