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From: wdm@ecn-pc.UUCP (William D Michael)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.followup
Subject: Re: Time for a change (Really why Intel stays in business)
Message-ID: <519@ecn-pc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Jun-86 21:17:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecn-pc.519
Posted: Sat Jun  7 21:17:02 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jun-86 00:55:16 EDT
References: <27600001@okstate.UUCP> <425@quad1.UUCP> <279@orsvax1.UUCP>
Reply-To: wdm@ecn-pc.UUCP (William D Michael)
Organization: Recent Escapee of Cybotech Product Development Lab
Lines: 52
Xref: watmath net.micro:14793 net.followup:6579

In article <279@orsvax1.UUCP> drew@orsvax1.UUCP (Drew Lucy) writes:
>>     In my opinion, the PC-XT-AT steps came too quick to be anything but a 
>> 'Grab the business world by their check books' marketing ploy.  

    Those bastards!!  You mean they consider making money more important 
    than making a technical statement?  The CEO of IBM could have explained
    to the stockholders that, sure, money is important, but, damn it all,
    IBM is NOT going to make the hackers of the world mad just for a few
    billion dollars.  
    Some of the offices I have been around have both MacIntoshes and IBM-PCs.  
    Without exception the Macs lie around unused day after day until someone 
    needs to put together some fancy announcement of a company picnic, while 
    the IBM's are used daily by accountants (Lotus), the engineers (Auto-CAD), 
    and nearly everyone else.

>>At the time
>> of the release of the PC, the 80286 was available, and could have been used.
>> But, no there was too much money to be made if IBM used the XT as the first
>> step up, and then the AT.

    Once again, you are faulting IBM for doing exactly what they are supposed
    to.

>I was Product Manager at Intel at the time of the IBM PC's introduction. 
>Believe me, the i80286 was not even close to being available at that time, let
>alone back when the PC was being designed. I don't know why IBM selected the
>8086 family of CPUs but, I'd guess they did it for the same reasons that the 
>vast majority of companies chose Intel over Motorola. Back in 1981 and 1982,
>when these choices were being made, Motorola did not have their CPU support
>chip act together. Intel got most of their design wins by getting the 
>customer's hardware engineers on their side. The hardware guys then dragged 
>the programmers along kicking and screaming. Intel also made a superior
>marketing effort. Anybody out there ever here of Operation CRUSH? Anyway, by
>the time Motorola got their support chips on the market, it was too late. Too
>large a commitment to 8086 had already been made.

    Well, the guys using assembler probably would opt for the 68000, but anyone
    that wanted to use a HLL was also forced to go Intel.  Unless they wanted
    to use Mot Pascal (SLOW!) or Mot FORTRAN.  No thanks.  Even all of the
    completely unacceptable screwing around with Intel compilation models
    was better than trying to use Motorola's development tools.

    Now, however, there are alot of third parties out there supplying 
    development tools.  Clearly, if one were starting from scratch today,
    and if MS-DOS compatibility were not a concern, then the 68000 family
    would be the way to go.  Few people have such a luxury, though.  I don't,
    so I am putting together an IBM clone system.  I'll have to struggle
    with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to software packages and 
    hardware options, while some people maintain their ideological
    purity and yearn for future days when 68000-based hardware dominates
    the scene.  Of course, when that happens, I'll trade up.