Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Why clone the PS/2?
Message-ID: <1642@looking.UUCP>
Date: 14 May 88 02:44:08 GMT
References: <8685@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> <5823@well.UUCP> <10600@steinmetz.ge.com> <5836@well.UUCP> <1252@uokmax.UUCP> <5884@well.UUCP> <5167@cup.portal.com> <488@bnlux0.bnl.gov>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 35

What I want to know is, why the big excitement about cloning the PS/2?
Why all the rush?

It's not the 3.5 inch disks.  Anybody can make a regular clone with these,
or put them in their old machine.

It's not for software.  No software vendor in his right mind is going to
write software that runs on a PS/2 and doesn't run on an AT type machine.
Cloning the bios isn't necessary.

It's not for add-on boards.  Add-on boards for the MCA are hard to find,
expensive and don't fit in your old machine.

It's not for customers.  The kind of customers who buy PS/2s are the kind
who buy IBM, and true blue all the way.  PS/2 sales are so high because
IBM cancelled the older machines, not because PS/2s are doing anything
new for their owners.

The only thing it could be fore is the potential advanced throughput of
the MCA bus, and that mainly on an 80386 machine.  Yet even IBM's
PS/2 model 80 runs more slowly than many of the AT style clones, and
there's currently nothing around to take advantage of MCA special features.
Why the rush now?

It's not for OS/2, which runs on ATs anyway.  Besides, the OS/2 for the
PS/2 probably won't run on your PS/2 clone!

So why?  All this for PR?  Or are people convinced that they can be like
Compaq if they are early enough cloning the PS/2?

Why is PS/2 cloning the hot hardware topic these days?  It's worth doing
eventually, but I can't see the reason for the rush, unless you have a lot
of money to burn now to get minimal market share that you hope will grow.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473