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From: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: IBM and Apple Operating Systems (Re: dosread.c again)
Message-ID: <6280@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 2 Nov 89 17:56:55 GMT
References: <6724@ficc.uu.net> <1774@naucse.UUCP> <4992@internal.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Followup-To: comp.os.minix
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 44

In article <1774@naucse.UUCP> wew@naucse.UUCP (Bill Wilson) writes:
> From article <6724@ficc.uu.net>, by peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva):
>> No, we'd have something based on Concurrent CP/M, OS/9, SOS, or some 
>> other decent DOS of that period. We'd have something better.
>> IBM didn't create the PC indusry. It doesn't do that any more. It looked 
>> and it saw a thriving industry, and said "I want that". So it took it.

> What thriving industry?  At the point that the IBM PC came out there
> was little going on in the Home/Desktop PC market.  Yes there were
> CP/M based machines that could be purchased for a small fortune, but
> I would not call it a thriving industry.

HAH! When the IBM PC came out:
1. It came with 16k of ram, and a casette port.
2. (Optional) floppy disks had a capacity of 160k.
3. No hard disk drives were available
4. CP/M-86, MS-DOS 1.0 (a *poor* imitation of CP/M-80 IMHO), and UCSD P-System
   were the only available OS's, with essentually no software available to
   run under MS-DOS, and little under CP/M-86.

On the other hand, I had a "Lobo MAX-80". This computer (built into the base
of the keyboard) cost $1000 without drives or monitor but:
1. Had a 5Mhz, 0 wait state, Z-80, roughly the same CPU performance as the
   IBM PC. Came with 128k ram. Also had a battery backupped clock.
2. Builtin disk controller for SCSI hard drives (!), and up to 4 each of
   8" and 5.25" floppies. I used DSDD 8" floppies for 1.2 meg capacity, and
   much faster seek and smaller latency times over the IBM's puny offerings.
   Today I could connect 5.25" HD floppies or 3.5" DSDD floppies with no
   problems, even though it was not designed for them.
3. MUCH faster display, even scrolls correctly. WordStar worked great on this
   box, but looked like a turkey on an IBM PC.
4. OS's included CP/M and later CP/M Plus, which supported thousands of 
   application programs, produced by little companies that didn't put their
   money in glitzy packaging but *did* answer their phones. Also LDOS, a very
   nice OS that was an extension of TRS-80's TRSDOS, so the machine would also
   run all the available Radio Shack software (some of it was really nice).
   (LDOS suported TSRs, as well as device drivers that could be installed
   at any time, not just boot time).

It took the PC/AT before IBM produced a machine that made my Lobo obsolete.

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply