Jean-Louis Gassée:

The 9100A [desktop calculator] is expensive; in 1968, $5,000 is a lot of money ($31,000 in today’s dollars). Still, the techies for whom it was designed love it. They see autonomy, independence from the centralized, institutional computing resources provided by their employers. That spirit goes far, sometimes.

Engineers at one aircraft company do want a 9100A for their work; management opposes on various and, the engineers say, capricious grounds: ‘We have big computers, use those.’ Or, ‘We can only buy French computers.’

Engineers being engineers, they craft a workaround: the company’s purchasing department gets a requisition for HP parts, the set needed to re-assemble the 9100A they lust after. This, being HP, is easy to do, the 9100A is “overdesigned”, I used to take the machine apart and rebuild it on the spot as a proof of the product’s maintainability, even by a certified klutz.

Next, they have to keep their treasure hidden. They condemn a toilet by pouring plaster of Paris in the bowl, pad the seat, jury-rig a shelf as a desk and keep the door indicator stuck in the “occupied” position. Thus they compute in peace.

Sneaking Bringing new tools into work isn’t new. Clever people will always find a way past the initial resistance. By doing so, they often end up creating the use cases that help overcome skepticism, demonstrate value, and spark broader adoption of new tools.

(Via Daring Fireball)