[rescue] Some days ....

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

Even the processor ???  I don't think the 8086/8088 was that old when
IBM adopted it for the PC, so I fail to see how the processor could have
only been a few $.  Other than the processor, most components on there
were probably pretty cheap.... especially in IBM's quantity purchase of
parts.

-- Curt

>Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 14:48:53 -0400
>Subject: Re: [rescue] Some days ....
>From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
>To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>On Sunday, June 8, 2003, at 02:10 PM, Phil Stracchino wrote:
>>>> From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at caerllewys.net>
>>>> To be fair, it hasn't been that bad in a looooooooong time ....  and
>>>> even then, at least half of it was the dain-brammaged OS's fault.
>>>
>>> ummm... IMHO PC hardware is seriously lacking in IRQs and DMA 
>>> channels....
>>
>> Amen, brother.  IBM really copped out by just daisychaining two
>> 8-channel IRQ chips in the AT architecture.  They should have built in 
>> a
>> single 32-channel (or better yet, 64-channel) chip, IMHO.
>
>   That would have been good, but bear in mind the original PC wasn't 
>designed to be scalable at all.  The fact that the industry decided to 
>adopt it as a de-facto standard was stupidity on the part of the 
>industry, not IBM.  (not trying to defend IBM here, but this is just 
>the way it is)
>
>   I think they did a very good job for a cheap "throwaway" design done 
>by junior engineers.  The production cost of the PC was almost nothing; 
>there are exactly *zero* components on the original PC motherboard 
>design that were more than a few dollars apiece.
>
>          -Dave
>
>--
>Dave McGuire             "I've grown hair again, just
>St. Petersburg, FL           for the occasion."       -Doc Shipley
>_______________________________________________
>rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue


Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

My e-mail is protected against viruses and spam by MailGuardian
                  http://www.mailguardian.net
          Top notch protection at unbelievable prices