Philips 'unalived' any chances for massive future revenues when they killed off Natlab (in spirit, not just in name). Philips Natlab was the Bell Labs of the Netherlands, even Europe perhaps.
In 1989 Philips introduced a new financing structure that required Natlab to secure two-thirds of its budget through contracts with Philips' product divisions. This marked a major change from its prior model, where funding came directly from the corporate board.
Anything that wasn't "commercially viable" according to the penny-polishers with MBAs was abandoned. The dumbest move ever. Fundamental research can't be outsourced, and never has immediate commercial value.
$500? Ours was $2800/mo for a family of three and this was 2018 (Not FANG, big pharma)
Yes the original plan was great. No, we didn't need a plan that great. No we couldn't "downgrade". With the bigger income suddenly gone, coming up with $2800/mo in cash was a huge problem. COBRA is useless for many/most, unless your coverage is shite and the cost to the employer low.
Big Meh. Bad metric.
Phone apps were dead long before Ai came about.
Shovelware double so.
Most users have 40-80 apps installed and use 9 a day, 20 a month(1).
The shitty iOS subscription trend killed off the hobby of 'app collecting'.
Have I created large commercial Ai-coded projects? No.
Did I create 80+ useful tools in hours/days that I wouldn't have otherwise?
Hellz yeah!
Would I publish any of these on public github? Nope!
I don't have the time nor the inclination to maintain them.
There's just too many.
My shovelware "Apps" reside on my machine/our intranet or V0/lovable/bolt.
Roughly ~25% are in active daily use on my machine or in our company.
All tools and "apps" are saving us many hours each week.
I'm also rediscovering the joy of coding something useful, without writing a PRD for some intern.
Speaking of which. We no longer have an intern.
A Dutch non-profit, staffed by volunteers and people in need of practical training.
Visitors to the museum get to touch and interact with most of them. I've 'adopted' a few machines there that introduced me to computers and programming as a kid (the language switch features on this site are a little glitchy, google translate is your friend). If you're in the neighborhood, it's definitely worth a visit.
Their LinkedIn page has a proper introduction in English:
"The HomeComputerMuseum is a museum about (home)computers based in the centre of the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), in the technical region of the Netherlands, close to airports like Eindhoven and Dusseldorf and easy to reach by train and car. The museum is 500m2 and has around 400 computers in stock. From the early Commodore PET2001, Altair 8800, Tandy TRS80 and Apple II all the way up to early 2000 pc's with Windows XP and Mac OS X 10.5. Since computers will break when they're not used, all computers are prepared to stay on during opening hours and ready to be touched by anyone who wants to. Even printers, modems, scanners and other additional hardware is connected and ready to use. We also have our own repair lab when something breaks. All computers are set up in a environment that's styled in the correct era. It's not a museum, it's an experience!
At least once per 3 months we do a big LAN-party where the newest computer is a Pentium 4. Meaning we do only old school gaming with games like Duke Nukem 3D, Red Alert, Wacky Wheels, Unreal Tournament and anything we fancy to do.
We are a non-profit organization that gives chances to people with autism and teaches young children how the old computers work. We strongly believe that in order to understand the future, one must know the past. That's what we're doing.
See, feel, try, play & learn!
We also love to show these old, sometimes forgotten, computers on Youtube and on social media. We need funds to keep this museum up and running and that's where you can help!
We're based in Helmond, conveniently placed between big airports (Eindhoven and Dusseldorf), easy reachable by train, enough parking places and right next to the city centre of Helmond. So make sure to visit us and consider a donation or any other form of support."