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> The project was formally approved on the 2nd of February in 1977 and the production run was increased to 3500. You’d think that moving from 1000 to 3500 computers was evidence of growing support for the project, but no. This 3500 number was so that when the computer failed to sell, Tandy Corporation could use them in their Radio Shack stores for inventory control — stores which numbered 3400 at the time.

This part is kind of amazing. They recognized the potential of computing, and wanted to have it for their use, but didn't think anybody else would want to do inventory management?

simoncion
It sounds to me like they intended to attempt to sell the machines, but wanted to make sure that if those machines failed to sell, they wouldn't have wasted money on a bunch of hardware that was useless to them.

Really good projects fail for all sorts of really stupid reasons. It shouldn't be considered amazing to reduce the risk of a new and unproven product with a backup plan that makes use of nearly 100% of the unsold inventory. ;)

JKCalhoun
I would have assumed you would want at least one per store simply to be able to show the thing and help sales. That you could also use it for inventory feels like someone within the company trying to prop up the rationale for ordering such a (seemingly) large number of units.

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