Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!rex!ames!sgi!bruceh@brushwud.sgi.com
From: bruceh@brushwud.sgi.com (Bruce R. Holloway)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IBM PC prehistory
Message-ID: <47076@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 27 Dec 89 23:24:03 GMT
References: <21559@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <76700097@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <1957@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Sender: bruceh@brushwud.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 22

In article <1957@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:
> 
>   Since I don't have access to IBM thinking at that time I can't say
> your last statement is wrong, but since small memory parts were
> available at that time (and cheaply), it would be easy to make smaller
> expansion boards. I doubt that IBM was worried about how SMALL they
> could go.
> 
>   I'm most surprized at the parity. They was IBM's big contribution to
> PC technology. Up to then all the PCs were just 8 bits, and most of us
> who wanted reliability ran static RAM instead of dynamic. I still have
> an S100 system with about 1.5MB of CMOS static in 4Kx8 packages as I
> recall. Same pinout as a 32k ROM, allowing installation of firmware as
> desired.

Oh my, you are indeed not the kind of customer they were aiming at!

I didn't mean that IBM cared about implementing memory with 4Kx8's or
'374's or whatever, only that back when 64Kx8 or 256Kx8 of DRAM was
still somewhat expensive, it would be a significant economic advantage
to be able to buy only that much, instead of having to spring for 64Kx16
or 256Kx16.  Still speculation on my part--I never worked for 'em.