Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

Digital Equipment Corporation was acquired by Compaq more than a decade ago, but in the 1970s the company was a major force in the world of computing. Apologists argue that DEC president Ken Olsen made this quip before the advent of the PC as we know it, but ready-made personal computers like the MITS Altair had hit the market a couple of years earlier. And within four years of Olsen's remark, the release of the IBM PC had enshrined this prediction in the high-tech hall of shame.

(The MITS Altair 8800 pictured above is one of ".")

Foolish Tech Prediction 5

"Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996 hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse."