Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zds-ux!gerry From: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Adam Smith's Hand (Was: The Sixth Generation) Message-ID: <328@zds-ux.UUCP> Date: 30 May 90 15:38:54 GMT References: <4698@uceng.UC.EDU> <293@cvbnetPrime.COM> <20039@grebyn.com> <340@necssd.NEC.COM> <135929@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <551@ofc.Columbia.NCR.COM> Reply-To: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) Organization: Zenith Data Systems Lines: 31 In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >> Are people going to let this go uncontested? I've *never* seen a system >> that couldn't be improved. IBM may dictate the interface - but do they >> dictate the implementation? >Yes. That is far from clear. At present, the AT bus standard has been all but abandoned by IBM, but the PC compatible computer and board companies are still building a lot of hardware based on this bus, and are designing new lines of systems and boards for an extension to the original bus. IBM chose to design a completely new and incompatible bus, MCA, and the clone makers, etc. got together with EISA which is every bit as good on the high end and somewhat compatible (obviously a 32 bit board won't work with an old bus, but you get to keep all your I/O boards). The market hasn't chosen a clear winner, but I'd put my money with EISA in the long run. >Ask the people with Victor 9000s, or the early TI machines, what happens if >you stray too far from IBM's design. Since I worked for Victor back in the beginning, I'll set the record straight on this. Victor didn't stray from IBM's design, they designed a better machine at the same time that IBM was designing their first PC. The first Victor 9000's shipped in late spring/early summer of 1981, a bit behind IBM, but the machine had a lot more features for less money. What Victor did not do is begin right away to design the next machine, and the next one, etc. It would have been pretty easy to redesign the 9000 with a dual format disk controller (IBM standard tiny and a 1.2M format of their own), and with a compatible bus. Next would have been an AT class machine, and so on. But then, hindsight is 20/20. Gerry Gleason