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Date:      Wed, 14 Mar 2001 01:44:05 -0500
From:      "Andrew C. Hornback" <hornback@wireco.net>
To:        <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Now a little OT but RE: FreeBSD and Linux (More Questions!)
Message-ID:  <016a01c0ac52$29e2d080$0f00000a@eagle>
In-Reply-To: <003701c0ac4a$e0a76cc0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>

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> >also remember working with snow white and the seven dwarfs, and
> >already knew that interoperability was something you got
> in a computer
> >line, at least until the manufacturer decided to play
> shell games to
> >kill the third party hardware market.

	Hmm... shall we say, IBM here?  Just how many manufacturers adopted
MCA?  IBM, Tandy did a couple of machines with it ('course, Tandy
always followed IBM's lead with strange hardware designs... Tandy 1000
SX followed the PC jr., need I say more?).  I believe Siemens,
Northridge, and possibly Fujitsu produced machines with MCA support.
Anyone know?

> I don't remember if there was a lot of crossover between
> the mainframe and
> PC people back then - I think the markets were pretty
> foreign to each
> other.

	There never really was a crossover.  Gotta look at the big mainframe
producers and see where they are now.  Where's Cray?  Last I heard
they were part of SGI, who was also going in the tank over their line
of NT based workstations (what the hell were THEY thinking?).  IBM's
Mainframe business... how many ES/9000s do you see being sold each
year?  They've moved to the AS/400 and RS/6000 lines.  And Digital?
Now a division of Compaq, simply because Compaq couldn't build a high
end machine to save their life and didn't know what good customer
support was.  Then there was Unisys and their Clearpath line, which
may still exist, not really sure.  But I know they've cut out their
consumer PC division, and used a lot of resources to build the new
high end servers that have CMP technology.  What about Data General,
or Wang, or ...

	The mainframe is getting to be like a classic car from the 50s.  Nice
to look at, the new generation Oohs and Aahs over it, but no one
really wants to touch it for fear of breaking it and no one wants to
support it any more due to the costs of replacement parts, etc. (not
that mainframe parts were ever cheap...)

> >The internet used to be the one place where interoperability was
> >important. I'm already miss it.
>
> Sigh.  Yes, the one thing that seems to remain a constant is there's
> always some yokel that has the world's greatest plan to release a
> proprietary solution, force everyone to switch to it, then lay on
> the beach the rest of their lives being paid for doing nothing.  It
> seldom works but every once in a while it does, just enough
> to encourage
> the rest of the idiots to attempt it over and over.

	Which reminds me... has anyone seen the new Intel vision of what a
consumer PC is going to be?  It's basically a stack of boxes, like an
Aztec temple, each one holding a component or two.  Foundational box
holding the motherboard, processor and memory.  Next step up holding
the DVD-RAM drive, followed up the next steps containing the HDD, the
other removable media drive (looked like a Zip drive), and the top
being the control and I/O panel with all of the ports on top.  Gone
are your PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, replaced by USB.  Gone are
your serial and parallel ports, replaced by USB.

	This is what they want the PC to be once the IA-64 hits mainstream.
Which basically means that when the Itanium gets out there and into
the hands of more than the technophiles, nearly everything that we
have now is going to be obsolete.

	Thank you Intel!

	*applies thumb to nose and wiggles fingers liberally in Intel's
general direction*

--- Andy


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