Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!ritcv!ccivax!rb From: rb@ccivax.UUCP (rex ballard) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc,net.arch Subject: Re: IBM RT PC - Open-ness (Euligy for the old PC) Message-ID: <411@ccivax.UUCP> Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 22:04:50 EST Article-I.D.: ccivax.411 Posted: Tue Feb 18 22:04:50 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 06:48:34 EST References: <1181@ecsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: rb@ccivax.UUCP (What's in a name ?) Distribution: net Organization: CCI Telephony Systems Group, Rochester NY Lines: 67 Xref: linus net.micro.pc:6843 net.arch:2374 > Previous article mentioned that IBM developed RISC chip is not available > separately. If IBM is up to their usual tricks, this (Proprietary RISC chip) is what they hope will be come the "New Standard" in "PC's"! Certainly effective against the "Clone market"! It's amazing how many DP administrators have gone along with this too! The one thing different this time is that PC purchase decisions are/were made higher up. Deja Vu? (Inside jokes for those who have supported or bought IBM in the past) The latest "Plug Compatible" - the 360!!! The latest "Plug Compatible" - the 370!!! Remember EDX? Upgraded your Series 1 yet? Which 370? What bundling? Upgrade or Replace? Is it (PC-RT this week) IBM compatible? IBM will change no rules before it's time! And now for this years replacement for last years product... Who's gonna tell the Pres. the IBM we bought last month is obsolete! Seriously folks, when IBM says "We won't change the rules", that fits in the same catagory as "The check is in the mail" or "I won't !@# in your face". Actually, to be fair, other manufacturers respond the same way. Apple, Commodore, and Atari upgraded their machines in response to IBM. This is just your normal competitive response. When IBM came out with the PC, the value of a Series 1 deteriorated rapidly. But the PC was an effective response against the CP/M desk-tops dominating the market at the time. MS-DOS may seem a bit "plain and vanilla" right now, but the CP/M boxes were pretty much "Text Only" with little support or standardization for even simple cursor positioning. The boxes with graphics relied on "Basic in Rom" operating systems so proprietary they weren't even source code compatible. Disk formats ranged from 35 track, single density, single sided to 96 track, quad density, double sided with 1 16KB sector per track. IBM eventually went with the quad density floppy, but the 360K was reliable, provided reasonable storage for "floppy only" systems. The graphics hardware, mountable drivers, interceptable interrupts, and "open architecture", opened the doors to hardware and software technology that was only science fiction as little as 2 years prior to its release. MS-DOS (PC-DOS) boxed them in, competitors came out with better or lower cost equivelant products and IBM is responding in their usual way. IBM needed a machine that would offer multi-tasking, VDI real-time graphics, high speed, mass storage, and a large linear address space. I would assume that the 68000 was considered too 'generic', and lacked the support (Memory management, floating point, caching, video support circuitry, etc) to be a candidate for a "dramatic new design". A RISC chip also makes bus sharing with very high resolution displays or very high speed DMA peripherals and co-processors more practical as well. Fortunately for IBM, the 68K boxes have not adopted any real "standards" yet. This leaves the market open for IBM to repeat the PC success again. If the 68K producers get things together and adopt some standards in OS, disk media formats, data interchange formats, and peripheral standards, they might get IBM's underbelly the way DEC/UNIX/TAR prevented IBM from cornering the mini market with the Series 1. If Bell had gone with MULTICS instead writing UNIX, the mini market might have gone to something like a Series 1 and EDX environment. Of course, to be competitive in the consumer market, the 68K standard will have to be application object code compatible (Since most micro owners don't get source for every application).