Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 18:31:16 -0500 From: Bob Willcox <bob@immure.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: chat list <freebsd-chat@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Message-ID: <20010807183116.D53464@luke.immure.com> In-Reply-To: <15216.25797.153039.786261@guru.mired.org>; from mwm@mired.org on Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 04:59:33PM -0500 References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15214.52633.581653.632317@guru.mired.org> <20010807145112.C39962@luke.immure.com> <15216.25797.153039.786261@guru.mired.org>
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On Tue, Aug 07, 2001 at 04:59:33PM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote: > [Context removed due to top posting.] > > Bob Willcox <bob@immure.com> types: > > I am a 30-year (1965-1995) IBM retiree so you may want to take this with > > a grain of salt as well. > > :-). > > > I never saw any ads claiming "Nobody was ever fired for buying IBM", > > but that's not to say it didn't happen. > > I remember seeing them. I recall a picture of a man sleeping with that > logo, the implication being that you didn't have to worry about being > fired. I believe the comment about their sales tactics comes from "The > Sun Never Sets on IBM". Never saw that one. Certainly this attitude persists today vis-a-vis Microsoft. I get that attitude here in the startup company I work for now (and I am one of the co-founders). If you use Windows and it breaks its not your fault. On the other hand, demand to use FreeBSD and if it fails you're in for it. > > > IBM has always _fired_ people for violation of "Conditions of > > Employment" (such as fighting, drugs on IBM property, etc.) or > > non-performance. It was difficult, as with any large Bureaucracy with > > deep pockets, though. The thing IBM had never done till the early 90's > > (even throughout the "Great Depression") was to lay anyone off. That > > changed, though. > > You're right - I misspoke, and it is indeed "layed off", not "fired." > For the issue about being moved, see the aforementioned "The Sun Never > Sets on IBM." Note that that deals mostly with the international > division, which may have been slightly different than the US division. True. IBM World Trade probably wasn't bound by the US Consent Decree of 1956 (I believe it was). BTW, the reason IBM didn't lay folks off prior to then was due to (mostly) culteral issues. The company had been sufficiently profitable for a very long time, all the time continuing to hire people. The attrition rate had always been extremely low. Everyone believed that as long as they continued to perform well they would be guaranteed a job. It wasn't till the mid to late '80s that the realization set in that the business was changing (mostly due to the PC) and that the company could no longer afford the appx. 450,000 employees. > > > As for the rest (IBM-PC being inferior, etc.) I can't really comment. > > My personal experiences were apparently somewhat different from Mike's, > > though. (I don't think that _any_ of the PCs available in 1981 were > > particularly good.) IMHO the _most_ inferior part of the IBM-PC was (and > > still is) the PC-DOS operating system. Unfortunately, in 1981 we didn't > > have many alternatives, and they were all more expensive. > > The story about computerlands reaction to the IBM PC came from a > history of computerland - possibly "Once upon a time in Computerland", > but that doesn't sound quite right. > > In any case, at a time when Apple and CP/M-80 boxes were starting > around $1000, the IBM PC showed up at nearly $2000, offering no > obvious advantages. You could use more than 64K for a single program, > but memory was so expensive that the point was nearly moot. For the > price of an IBM PC with 128K you could get a high end CP/M system with > bank switching, allowing you to use extra memory as disk cache. That > same hardware could also run MP/M, meaning that you could buy a > multi-user system - one user per bank - for not a lot more than the > cost of a single-user IBM-PC. We had pretty good luck selling those to > small offices - if we could get to them before they bought an IBM-PC. Well, to me anyway, coming from an IBM mainframe background, my first IBM-PC with only 128KB of memory and two 160KB diskette drives seemed pretty bleak. It wasn't till I could get a hard disk on it (probably in the '85 time frame) that it seemed like a useful computer to me. > > The real winner was OS/9, running on a 6809 system. Here you had a > system that could compete with apple or CP/M on price, except it was > running a multitasking operating system with a Unix-like kernel and > architecture. Radio Shack eventually released a version for the Color > Computer, which could be made multi-user by simply plugging a terminal > into the serial port and starting a shell on it. High-end boxes used > multiple 6809s - basically one per card - running OS/9 for things like > graphics processors, I/O handlers, etc. Since OS/9 was designed to be > anb embedded OS - and is still available as such, at least in the 68K > version - this worked fairly well. I have had no experience with any of these. I began working on AIX for the RT in 1983, I fell in love with Unix (not necessarily AIX:-), and have been using some version of it ever since. :-) Bob > > <mike > -- > Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ > Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. -- Bob Willcox All men profess honesty as long as they can. bob@vieo.com To believe all men honest would be folly. Austin, TX To believe none so is something worse. -- John Quincy Adams To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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