[geeks] retro magazine fun (SysAdmin)

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Michael Schiller wrote:
> Anyone here remember a magazine called "S-100 Microcomputing" I 
> remember reading an article about the new machine IBM was going to 
> release, and how it would probably fail because they put the CPU on the 
> motherboard, rather than on a card, and they dared to use a bus other 
> than S-100 which everyone knows is a standard. Well, I guess they were 
> wrong, but I kind of wish they weren't.

What made the IBM PC successfull is that it turned microcomputers from 
a "geeks toy" into a commomdity. You could go into a computer store
and walk out with a working system.

Apple never achieved that with the Apple II, probably because all the good
applications (DBASE, VisiCalc, WordStar) all ran on CP/M which required
a coprocessor card which was never 100% integrated.

But the real success of the PC was not until it was cloned. Then you could
buy a cheap clone for half of the price of an IBM or a compatible and
still run the same applications. This expanded the market for hardware add-ons
and software, which expanded the market for IBM PC's, which expanded......

BTW, IBM was not 100% on target for their cost cutting. The original PC
had no floppy controler (it was an add-on) but it did have a cassette
tape interface on the motherboard. Anyone here ever use it?

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem Israel gsm at mendelson.com 
IL Voice: 972-544-608-069  IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 
I may be an old fart, but I'm a high-tech, up to date old fart. :-)