What month and Year did Otrona, who manufactured the Attache computer,
go out of business?

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Clarification of Question by fogger-ga on 29 Mar 2004 10:43 PST

I need a some source, such as a url to a trade publication, to
indicate why you believe Otrona went out of business in a given month
and year.

fogger--

Otrona Advanced Systems, the maker of the well-regarded (but
expensive) Otrona Attache portable computer announced in September
1984 that it was ceasing production.  It gave notice to its 175
employees and said that it had decided that is was not able to
reorganize (and thus continue in business) under Chapter 11 of the
Bankruptcy Act.  Here is a link to a machine-translated article from
the September 11, 1984 edition of Computerwoche.de that contains this
information (some of the translation is predictably garbled, but the
gist of the article is understandable):

Computer Week Online: "Portable Manufacturer Otrona Gives Up"
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1984/19841109/a67494.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522otrona%2Badvanced%2Bsystems%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8

(If you have trouble with this very long link, here is the link to the
original, untranslated page, which you can use to perform your own
machine translation by copying and pasting text into the Google
translation tool.  If you need assistance doing that, please ask for
clarification.):
Computer Week: Archive
http://www1.computerwoche.de/heftarchiv/1984/19841109/a67494.html

As you probably know, Otrona's demise was the direct result of the
Otrona's incompatibility with the IBM PC and the widespread
introduction of PC clones:
Fact Index: Otrona
http://www.fact-index.com/o/ot/otrona.html

The 1984 date is consistent with other online information.  For
example, here is a link to a page on a German website devoted to
archiving historical information on computers.  This page confirms
that the Otrona Attache was produced from 1982-1984:
Computer-Archiv: Otrona
http://www.computer-archiv.de/comp0096.htm


Search Strategy:

I used various Google searches using combinations of such search terms
as "otrona," "bankrupt," "ceased," "folded," "1983," 1984," etc. 
Since the results for most of these searches were limited in number, I
browsed many of the sites returned until I found this information on
the German website linked above.


I am confident that this is the information you are seeking.  If
anything is unclear, please ask for clarification before rating this
answer.


markj-ga

Exactly what I needed.  Thanks very much.

I guess Otrona went out of the business in Oct. 1983.

celloweb

fogger --

You're welcome, and thanks much for the rating and the tip.

markj-ga