Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aries!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IBM PC prehistory
Message-ID: <1990Jan15.144928.6705@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 90 14:49:28 GMT
References: <1546@aber-cs.UUCP> <33896@mips.mips.COM> <21559@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1989Dec30.235854.14254@world.std.com> <10131@microsoft.UUCP> <250@dg.dg.com> <129994@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <256@dg.dg.com>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Chemical Sciences
Lines: 30

In article <256@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!rec (Robert Cousins) writes:
>In article <129994@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> kenobi@sun.UUCP (Rick Kwan - Sun Intercon) writes:
>>I have often wondered what would happen if IBM had chosen the 68000
>>instead of 8088/8086, and tailored a their own simple OS to run on
>>it?  I think IBM could very easily have produced such a thing.  They
>>certainly had the expertise.
>>
>>	Rick Kwan
>>	Sun Microsystems - Intercontinental Operations
>
>Well, IBM did make a 68k based machine, the IBM 9000 from IBM Instruments.
>If memory serves me correctly, it was written up in BYTE at approximately
>the same time as the PC was becoming popular.  Does anyone care to 
>throw in more info?  
> 
       ^^

You have the word wrong. It is "up", as in "throw up", which is
what people did when looking at one of those. We had a couple.
UTTER GARBAGE. I watched IBM demo them - their machine wouldn't run
for quite a while, and they never were able to get it to take
data from the device it was connected to, nor to print anything.

The delivered products were worse than useless.

The problems probably had little if anything to do with the processor,
and a lot to do with the programming. Also, this was a rather
independent IBM division.

Doug McDonald