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What I remember most about Transmeta was that they employed Linus Torvalds. This gave the name instant status and recognition among the Slashdot crowd and simil

What I remember most about Transmeta was that they employed Linus Torvalds. This gave the name instant status and recognition among the Slashdot crowd and similar places.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago
The first Crusoe Product was a Sony Picturebook. Somewhere in Japan there’s a prototype of that laptop with Linus’ and others signatures, including mine. It’d be fun to try and track that down someday.
- robterrell 6y ago
  Not in Japan, but I happen to possess a prototype Picturebook and now I'm curious... Where did you sign it? Inside the case like the original Macintosh? Or on the outside?
  - PopeDotNinja 6y ago
    Gosh, it's been a long time. I don't remember for sure, but I have a faint recollection that I signed it in the O of SONY. But honestly, I don't remember.
- em-bee 6y ago
  the sony picturebook was my first personal laptop. a perfect travelcompanion. once i figured out how to install linux. and the transmeta cpu made it feel special even though as a user one doesn't really notice the difference.
nostrademons 6y ago
They had a lot of crazy smart employees. Aside from Linus, one of Quake's authors worked there. And I had a Google coworker (who, while at Google, wrote the C++ framework that all their C++ webservers are based on, and also was one of the early engineers on Dart) who was a Transmeta alum, and had previously worked on Hotspot before that. It's one of those companies like General Magic and Symbolics that were complete failures in the marketplace, but are known for their alumni network. Even though the product didn't go anywhere, the tech that went into the product was incredibly impressive, and the engineers that built that tech are top-notch.
lordgrenville 6y ago
In his book Just for Fun Linus talks a bit about the company and why he chose to work there.
atgreen 6y ago
I had one business meeting there, which included Linus and Steve Chamberlain, the creator of Cygwin. It looked like a fun place to work.
guidoism 6y ago
That company was cool at the time. Their website was blank but If you looked at the HTML there was a comment saying “this page doesn’t exist” or something to that effect. I decided to see if sending an email to hr@transmeta.com would work and I got a reply and an interview and I was flown out to Sunnyvale. I thought I was the coolest person in the world at the time.
- guidoism 6y ago
  I also remember that something got messed up with my hotel reservation and I mentioned it during my interview and then I heard yelling. And um... I was still just a college student. It was a different world for me.
- PopeDotNinja 6y ago
  That’s how I got the job!

What I remember most about Transmeta was that they employed Linus Torvalds. This gave the name instant status and recognition among the Slashdot crowd and similar places.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

The first Crusoe Product was a Sony Picturebook. Somewhere in Japan there’s a prototype of that laptop with Linus’ and others signatures, including mine. It’d be fun to try and track that down someday.

robterrell 6y ago
Not in Japan, but I happen to possess a prototype Picturebook and now I'm curious... Where did you sign it? Inside the case like the original Macintosh? Or on the outside?
- PopeDotNinja 6y ago
  Gosh, it's been a long time. I don't remember for sure, but I have a faint recollection that I signed it in the O of SONY. But honestly, I don't remember.
em-bee 6y ago
the sony picturebook was my first personal laptop. a perfect travelcompanion. once i figured out how to install linux. and the transmeta cpu made it feel special even though as a user one doesn't really notice the difference.

nostrademons 6y ago

They had a lot of crazy smart employees. Aside from Linus, one of Quake's authors worked there. And I had a Google coworker (who, while at Google, wrote the C++ framework that all their C++ webservers are based on, and also was one of the early engineers on Dart) who was a Transmeta alum, and had previously worked on Hotspot before that. It's one of those companies like General Magic and Symbolics that were complete failures in the marketplace, but are known for their alumni network. Even though the product didn't go anywhere, the tech that went into the product was incredibly impressive, and the engineers that built that tech are top-notch.

lordgrenville 6y ago

In his book Just for Fun Linus talks a bit about the company and why he chose to work there.

atgreen 6y ago

I had one business meeting there, which included Linus and Steve Chamberlain, the creator of Cygwin. It looked like a fun place to work.

guidoism 6y ago

That company was cool at the time. Their website was blank but If you looked at the HTML there was a comment saying “this page doesn’t exist” or something to that effect. I decided to see if sending an email to hr@transmeta.com would work and I got a reply and an interview and I was flown out to Sunnyvale. I thought I was the coolest person in the world at the time.

guidoism 6y ago
I also remember that something got messed up with my hotel reservation and I mentioned it during my interview and then I heard yelling. And um... I was still just a college student. It was a different world for me.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
That’s how I got the job!