It’s said in his NYT obituary that the just-deceased Intel founder Andy Grove “helped midwife the semiconductor revolution” and that “in some ways [he] was considered ‘the father’ of Silicon Valley.” But even the most plugged in of all can’t know everything, can’t collect and decipher information perfectly.

Case in point: Under a quarter century ago, Grove grew frustrated when others argued smartphones could soon become a reality. Peter H. Lewis’ 1992 New York Times article was prescient about the emergence of smartphones, even if it didn’t realize the tools would be for everyone, not just the executive class. Grove, who’s quoted in the piece, was much further off the mark. An excerpt:

Sometime around the middle of this decade no one is sure exactly when — executives on the go will begin carrying pocket-sized digital communicating devices. And although nobody is exactly sure what features these personal information gizmos will have, what they will cost, what they will look like or what they will be called, hundreds of computer industry officials and investors at the Mobile ’92 conference here last week agreed that the devices could become the foundation of the next great fortunes to be made in the personal computer business.

“We are writing Chapter 2 of the history of personal computers,” said Nobuo Mii, vice president and general manager of the International Business Machines Corporation’s entry systems division.

How rich is this lode? At one end of the spectrum is John Sculley, the chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., who says these personal communicators could be ‘the mother of all markets.’

At the other end is Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is “a pipe dream driven by greed.”