After his first game venture failed, Peter Molyneux started a baked bean export business. Commodore International mistakenly offered him ten free Amiga systems because they confused the baked bean company’s name “Taurus” with a software company “Torus”, and he used the hardware to create a database system for the Amiga, which was successful.

Which is just such a weird story.

Full text of the paragraph:

Due to the game’s failure, Molyneux retreated from game design, and started Taurus Impex Limited—a company that exported baked beans to the Middle East—with his business partner Les Edgar.[5][6] Commodore International mistook it for Torus, a more established company that produced networking software, and offered to provide Molyneux with ten[5] free Amiga systems to help in porting “his” networking software.[2][7] Molyneux later said “it suddenly dawned on me that this guy didn’t know who we were. I suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, ‘If this guy finds out, there go my free computers down the drain.’ So I just shook his hand and ran out of that office.”[2] Taurus designed a database system for the Amiga called Acquisition – The Ultimate Database for The Amiga[5] and, after clearing up the misunderstanding with Commodore, released the program to moderate success.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      141 year ago

      A couple of months ago there was a period in which there were plenty of posts about beans. The posts and the comments built up the idea that the Lemmy identity was tied to beans. I guess that died down a bit.

      • GONADS125
        link
        fedilink
        English
        61 year ago

        It was a running joke about shitposting, hence posting beans (fuel for shitposting).

        I’m not a fan of lame ass memes and puns so I blocked all those communities. No beans for me.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      111 year ago

      Your indignation at someone calling out the beanery of your post is somehow even funnier than the serendipitous inclusion of beans in the post. All around A+, bravo.