Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!gatech!mcnc!decvax!dartvax!stevel
From: stevel@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU (Steve Ligett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Macs, IBMs, and compatibility.
Message-ID: <7836@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 29 Dec 87 14:48:45 GMT
References: <37250@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu (Steve Ligett)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 33

In article <37250@sun.uucp> chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>For all those folks who complain about how Apple has left you in the lurch
>over compatibility, I thought I'd toss in a few comments about how IBM has
>been handling compatibility over in PCland. The details are from the 12/20
>San Jose Mercury News, by the way.
>Mac compatibility problems:...
>IBM compatibility: IBM came out with the new PS/2 line. You own an AT? or an
>XT? or an old, moldy PC? You're out of luck. Obsolete. Burn it and buy a
>new, neat, nifty IBM (remember, folks, the original IBM PC is about the same
>age as a 128K machine. in the same frame that Apple put together an upgrade
>path (to the plus) and a second architecture (the II -- the SE is basically
>a funky Plus in my eyes) IBM obsoleted the PC, the XT and now the AT.
More accurately, the PC corresponds to the 128k mac - both of which have
had ROM, disk drive, memory, and third party processor upgrades.  And
numerous system software changes, including new file systems.   The AT
might correspond to the Plus.  The PS/2 corresponds to the Mac II, sort
of.  roughly...  The AT is by no means obsolete, or at least no more than
a Plus.  (And remember, the AT came out before the 512K.)
>It's even more fun on the software side. Remember MS-DOS? Toss it out.
>There's this neat new toy called OS/2 .....
>...IBM ships as the standard configuration a
>system without enough memory to run its operating system.

IBM doesn't force you to run OS/2 any more than Apple forces you to use
multifinder.  Multifinder isn't as big as OS/2, but really, it's silly
for either company to sell a machine with less than 2 megabytes in it,
isn't it?

I apologize for cutting down Chuq's article so much, and for leaving it so
long.  
-- 
   Steve Ligett     steve.ligett@dartmouth.edu or
(decvax harvard ihnp4 linus)!dartvax!steve.ligett