Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 16:05:51 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Message-ID: <20010808160551.Q78395@wantadilla.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <3B6F98D0.A3C22CC9@mindspring.com>; from tlambert2@mindspring.com on Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 12:29:20AM -0700 References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15214.52633.581653.632317@guru.mired.org> <3B6F98D0.A3C22CC9@mindspring.com>
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On Tuesday, 7 August 2001 at 0:29:20 -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: > Mike Meyer wrote: >> Enter the IBM-PC. It's clearly inferior to hardware already on the >> market and cost far to much. The largest PC retailer of the time - >> ComputerLand - figured they'd never be able to sell one. However, it's >> from *IBM*. So all those IT managers start buying them, because >> "nobody was ever fired for buying IBM." The demand outstrips the >> supply, the clones start showing up, and the revolution is on. > > FWIW: In the original version, the IBM PC was powered by a > Motorolla 68k. Not in any released version. It's possible, even probable, that they played with it during the design phase. > They switched to the Intel 8088 (*not* 8086, yet) because Motorolla > could not commit volume, and IBM wanted a license to fabricate. This seems unlikely. Where do you get this from? At the time, the PC project was just another pie-in-the sky project, an attempt to do better than the failed 5100. >> The machines came with an OS called PC-DOS. You could also get >> CP/M-86, the 8086 version of the previous dominant OS, but it cost >> extra without providing any extra functionality. PC-DOS came from >> MSFT. IBM had apparently wanted to purchase it outright, but Gates >> convinced them to pay a percentage instead. In doing so, Gates stole >> the revolution from IBM. > > CP/M-88 and MP/M-88. There never ware operating systems with these names. It came with optional CP/M 86. I don't know about MP/M 86, but it's quite possible. > The 86 was later. The 86 was earlier. 1976. The 8088 was just a low-cost 8086, with an 8 bit bus, enabling machines to be made with a lower chip count. The processor core was almost identical; I think the only difference was the pipeline length. I suspect that the part count was what really caused IBM to go with the 8088 and not the 68000; the former needed only 8 memory chips (1 bit wide), the latter would have needed 32. >> Radio Shack created a "better-than-IBM" compatible - >> better graphics, etc. - and it died because the available software >> wouldn't run on it properly. In other words, even then, if you >> couldn't run the popular software, you were pretty much dead. > > The Tandy 1000 was a late comer in the game. It used a > non-standard UART, so the serial port never worked right > with standard off-the-shelf software, right about the > time that people started to get into modems, big-time. > > DEC also built a machine, the DEC Rainbow, that used a > non-standard UART, and had the same problem. They finally > went to a standard UART with the Revision B Rainbow II > motherboard, but by then, it was too late, and they had > missed their window. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't the UART which killed these machines. Was that the Z-80 SIO? >> FWIW, Gates sold IBM a product he didn't have. He then went out and >> bought QDOS - the Quick and Dirty OS - from SCC, which had written >> it for their 8086 S-100 boxes because Digital Research kept >> delaying CP/M-86. Ah, I missed this before. Yes, this is almost exactly correct. The company was Seattle Computer Products, SCP. The rest is exactly correct. > IBM attempted several times to contact Digital Research about > licensing CP/M, but they never returned IBM's calls, So how come the PC was released with optional CP/M? > and then their founder died. We can be pretty sure that if he had stayed alive, it wouldn't have made any difference, given the length of "then". > Cringely covers this in detail, both in his book, and the videos > based on it. Does he suggest a temporal relationship between the OS choice and the death of Gary Kildall? That would be very wrong. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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