[geeks] Microsoft Surface...

Mon Jun 4 21:53:11 CDT 2007

Lionel Peterson wrote:

> Well, are we including Mac products? If so, isn't that where Word, Excel and various other "PC" applications got their start?

Well, that was well after the launch of the IBM PC, and you were talking about
how they dropped non-Intel support after that.

I just don't think they had much non-Intel support, ever.

In fact, I thought that several of the Microsoft BASICs were actually done by
third parties.

For example, I used to have MBASIC for my Atari, and it was written by OSS,
not Microsoft.

> At the time they supported the 6502, 8080, and other processors they supported them as needed by the PC industry at the time, which was mainly for BASIC, either in ROM or manually loaded...

OK.

Oh well, at least that means my collection is more complete than I thought...

> PC builders can build whatever they want, unfortunately what they want to build (as far as I can tell) are Wintel boxes running Vista...

They have to build what will sell, and that means 90% of what they sell must
run Windows.

> One of the first rules in computing was to pick the software you wanted to run, 
> then get the machine it runs on - when that phrase rose in prominence it
> becuase there were so many different platforms to choose from (CP/M,
> TRS-80, Apple, Commodore, Amiga, and others).

The irony now is that you have less choice.

One thing that really bugs me: I was playing with an Apple IIgs the other day,
and it struck me that that old platform has more application software than any
UNIX system does today, except maybe Apple.

UNIX never has picked up a lot of the stuff we used to have on microcomputers.

>> The PC has not needed any of the legacy hardware support for ten years now,
>> and Microsoft is the only reason it is still there.
> 
> The iPaq desktop tried (and failed) to convince everyone they didn't need parallel or serial ports on their computers (USB 1.1 would suffice!), it failed to convince everyone and failedin the market...[0]

Serial and parallel ports are not legacy hardware, they are useful ports.

I'm talking about the specific structure and logic of the original PC/AT that
still has to live in modern hardware under emulation, solely for the purpose
of supporting the Windows HAL.

No other usable and current OS needs it, and hasn't for years.

-- 
shannon           | Castles are sacked in war, Chieftains are scattered far,
                  | Truth is a fixed star, Eileen aroon!
                  |         -- Gerald Griffin