End of an Era

End of an Era

Starting out in 1957 with $70,000, M.I.T. engineer Ken Olsen, 66, founded the Digital Equipment Corp., which grew into the world's second largest computer maker, a $14 billion firm. Now, under the gun for DEC's financial woes -- a huge loss is anticipated for the quarter just ended -- he is stepping down. Olsen foresaw the decline of giant mainframe computers in favor of smaller minicomputers, but he failed to anticipate the revolution in even smaller workstations and PCs.

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