Unfortunately, as calculator prices collapsed, so did Sinclair Radionics' profits, and the company was broken up in 1979 after heavy losses. He fought Moore's law, and the law won. But this whole thing reminds me of Woz's work in the first Apples. Why wasn't his genius work similarly wiped out? Soon after the Apple, there were dozens - hundreds - of new personal computer manufacturers. I think it's software. The valu…
A good question. I'd say that the Apple II family survived longer than it deserved to because the hardware was so nice. Woz combined classical hacker insights with a look-and-feel quality ethic that the Commodores and Ataris couldn't live up to, being designed to target a price point beyond all else. Sure, those computers could do tricks with graphics and sound that the Apple couldn't match -- but if you wanted sharp, readable 80-column text for word processing or VisiCalc work, your only options were an Apple //e at $1500 or a similarly-equipped Tandy or IBM PC for well over $4000.
Apple's huge array of (relatively) low-cost peripherals also helped it compete against other platforms in the early days. These aspects weren't sexy but they were important to lots of home and small-business users.
Famously, the company was also smart enough to target K-12 education, which cultivated their marketplace from the ground up. Once again, the impression of quality versus the low-cost 8-bit competitors would have helped them do that.