Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!elsie!imsvax!ted From: ted@imsvax.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: IBM new 'standard' Message-ID: <701@imsvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 22-Mar-87 23:49:51 EST Article-I.D.: imsvax.701 Posted: Sun Mar 22 23:49:51 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 24-Mar-87 03:07:04 EST Organization: IMS Inc, Rockville MD Lines: 114 Mike Klein, Sun Microsystems: >There was a flurry of articles a few months ago in Fortune, Business Week, >and a number of other magazines bemoaning IBM's unprecedented ill health. >One important cause was the poor profit margins on PCs. It's not hard >to guess why... clones cost less, are usually faster, and some are even >higher quality. Some corporate purchasers are now even specifying IBM >*compatibles* only. That's a big problem for IBM. All these articles said >that IBM, after an initial wild success with the PC, was moving toward >a closed, proprietary system. > IBM, true to its history, can absorb initial low sales if it means > eventually locking many customers in to its hardware and software. > It is a big pain for users... but then that's not really what IBM > is interested in --- another story of course, and a problem that > IBM is also working on. End my opinion.> Abraham Lincoln said it best: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and you can fool some of the people all of the time......." IBM's future happiness seems to be dependant on fooling too many of the people too much of the time; especially as the generation of managers who never heard of anyone being fired for buying IBM all start to retire. I'm glad I don't own any of their stock these days. Today's generation of cheap XT and AT clones are meeting the needs of most computer users far better than they have ever been met before, with hardware and software add-ons to do just about any kind of thing imaginable doing nothing but getting cheaper and better by the day and, while I see some areas of applicability for entirely new kinds of machines, I believe most users would do best to stay right where they are software-wise, perhaps migrating to stronger 386 based single-user machines as they become available and inexpensive. What I mean is this: that over the next couple of years, numerous slick-talking people are going to be coming up with all kinds of reasons for abandoning our happy single-user DOS world and I, for one, intend to tell all of them to go **** themselves. The reasons for replying thusly to anyone trying to foist a closed-architecture system on us should be obvious even to the blind. Then, there will be the people who claim that DOS isn't a real operating system. Operating systems are the fruits of poverty, a necessary evil for computers which have to serve many masters. Owning your own computer obviates any need for real OSs even as acquiring great wealth obviates any need for techniques of scrimping. Multi-TASKING can be achieved in software on a single-user basis quite well without re-designing your operating system e.g. Mystic Pascal e.g. the article on concurrency using Turbo Pascal in the 3-86 issue of Dobb's, etc. and you don't even need an AT or protected modes to do it. Such things as transferring data and spread-sheeting at the same time can be handled by these and other kinds of software which are cheap and available NOW. The April 14 issue of PC Magazine contains an article on the new DOS, known generally as ADOS, which they refer to as ADOG, claiming that it is quite slow and that a great deal of ordinary DOS software won't work under it, particularly memory resident items such as sicekick or the Mother Jones package. In fact, such items will only function as device drivers, with all sorts of fun commencing with any attempt to install two or more of them at once. And all so that I can allow other people to use my conputer? Maybe IBM and Microsoft haven't gotten the message of the PC revolution: NOBODY uses my computer except me, and THAT is what the micro revolution is about. What about virtual memory and the other wonders of protected mode? Virtual memory was also an accomodation to poverty on multi-user machines for which there was never enough memory. In 15 years of programming, including applications in Cobol, statistics, maximum likelihood modeling, software design and all sorts of things, I have never actually SEEN any application which could not be programmed in 640K, the standard for PC and AT clones these days. Probably 70% of all programs I have ever seen which do anything worthwhile and were well written take less than 64K. True fanatics in need of really BIG arrays will likely find more happiness using the Turbo Extender package with its LIM and virtual arrays than they will looking elsewhere Then there is the possibility of running UNIX on 286 and 386 machines. Unix is my OS of choice for machines which for some legitimate reason HAVE to be multi-user; I can't think of any reason why any sane person should wish to run it on a single user computer, unless they like slow performance, clunky and fragile file systems, lack of standardization, and generally prefer 1976 software, such rubbish as TROFF, VI, ED, YACC etc. to the software of the present. Make no mistake, the DOS software world is casting a giant shadow right now, and UNIX is standing IN that shadow. When the biggest and most critical selling point of all UNIX systems is "runs DOS software", the conclusion to be drawn is obvious. Finally, there will be people telling us we need new kinds of machines to keep up with the Macs, SUNS etc. vis a vis graphics applications. Bullshit! All such things can be outperformed with DOS/PC compatible components AT THE PRESENT, and at a fraction of the cost. EGA graphics blow the MAC away right now, Metheus and several other people have 1024x1024 and 1280x1024 color boards now for which Autocad and DrHalo drivers exist etc. If you can live with black and white, Megascan (412 443-5820) is now marketing a 4096x3300 screen and controller which work with ordinary ATs. And, finally, for people who need to be able to REALLY crunch numbers, do color rendering, ray-drawing etc., or simply always secretely wished to have a personal computer with some reasonable fraction of Cray power, there is the Fairchild Clipper set, 5-8 mips sustained average, 30 mips peak, 2 megaflops etc., with at least one organization selling a complete AT converted this way for less than $8000 right now. Any way I look at it, it appears that the ultimate computer for most people, the inexpensive AT clone, is already here, now, and I think most users know this. Ted Holden HT Enterprises