WHEN BIG OIL TRIED TO BUILD THE IBM OF TOMORROW In the 1970s the world’s largest oil company grew restless. Selling gasoline made them rich, but their executives wanted something flashier. They decided they would beat IBM at its own game and invent the office of the future. They bought clever little companies. One made glowing-screen word processors. Another built a smart typewriter with far fewer parts. A third created a powerful new computer chip called the Z80. They bundled everything together and told the world they would soon own the desks of America. For a short while it looked possible, they called it Oxy. Then cheap personal computers arrived. A machine that cost a few hundred dollars suddenly did the same work as their expensive office systems. And like all highly funded companies: Meetings dragged on. Products jammed, overheated, and locked users out. Customers quietly chose someone else. By the mid-1980s the dream was over. The oil company sold the pieces and went back to pumping fuel. The office of tomorrow belonged to someone else maybe Xerox? No but that is another story. It came out of a garage like it always does.