"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons"

- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of
science,1949

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out a year."

- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice
Hall, 1957

"But what...is it good for?"

- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division
of IBM, commenting on the microchip, 1968

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp.,1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

- Western Union internal memo, 1876

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible."

- A Yale University professor in response to Fred Smith's
paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith
went on to found Federal Express.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even
built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.' "

- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of
Patents, 1899

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."

- Bill Gates, 1981

"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I
cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern
shipbuilding has gone beyond that."

- Captain Edward J. Smith, 1906, speaking of the luxury
ocean liner 'Adriatic'. In 1912 he became captain of the
H.M.S. Titanic.