Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 16:45:27 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org>, tlambert2@mindspring.com Cc: j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: How did the MSFT monopoly start? Message-ID: <15217.45815.8133.991656@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20010808160551.Q78395@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20010806142544.A64348@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <15214.52633.581653.632317@guru.mired.org> <3B6F98D0.A3C22CC9@mindspring.com> <20010808160551.Q78395@wantadilla.lemis.com> <3B7103A4.558B9B3B@mindspring.com>
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Greg Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> types: > On Tuesday, 7 August 2001 at 0:29:20 -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: > > Mike Meyer wrote: > > FWIW: In the original version, the IBM PC was powered by a > > Motorolla 68k. > Not in any released version. It's possible, even probable, that they > played with it during the design phase. I vaguely recall a 68K powered IBM desktop box from that era. It wasn't sold as a personal computer, but as a lab system. It was *incredibly* ugly, and we referred to it as the "attack of the electric tomatoes" machine. > > They switched to the Intel 8088 (*not* 8086, yet) because Motorolla > > could not commit volume, and IBM wanted a license to fabricate. > This seems unlikely. Where do you get this from? At the time, the PC > project was just another pie-in-the sky project, an attempt to do > better than the failed 5100. I don't recall the model numbers on the IBM machines at all. Could the 5100 have been the lab machine mentioned above? FWIW, the story about dropping Motorola due to Motorola not being able to provide the volume that IBM wanted matches the hearsay I recall from the era. I also heard that Intel made the commitment knowing they couldn't honor. There's an aweful lot of hearsay floating around about the early days. I've tried to restrict my reminiscing to things I personally dealt with or things from sources I thought reputable, avoiding hearsay. I'd never heard the story about volume from a reputable source. > >> The machines came with an OS called PC-DOS. You could also get > >> CP/M-86, the 8086 version of the previous dominant OS, but it cost > >> extra without providing any extra functionality. PC-DOS came from > >> MSFT. IBM had apparently wanted to purchase it outright, but Gates > >> convinced them to pay a percentage instead. In doing so, Gates stole > >> the revolution from IBM. > > CP/M-88 and MP/M-88. > There never ware operating systems with these names. It came with > optional CP/M 86. Which is basicaly what I said in the first place. > > The 86 was later. > The 86 was earlier. 1976. The 8088 was just a low-cost 8086, with an > 8 bit bus, enabling machines to be made with a lower chip count. The > processor core was almost identical; I think the only difference was > the pipeline length. I suspect that the part count was what really > caused IBM to go with the 8088 and not the 68000; the former needed > only 8 memory chips (1 bit wide), the latter would have needed 32. Are you sure the 68K would have needed 32 memory chips? I recall the 68K as having a 16 bit external bus, meaning it would only have needed 16. Motorola eventually introduced the 68008 with an 8 bit bus, but I never saw a machine that used one of the things. > >> FWIW, Gates sold IBM a product he didn't have. He then went out and > >> bought QDOS - the Quick and Dirty OS - from SCC, which had written > >> it for their 8086 S-100 boxes because Digital Research kept > >> delaying CP/M-86. > Ah, I missed this before. Yes, this is almost exactly correct. The > company was Seattle Computer Products, SCP. The rest is exactly > correct. I thought it was "Seattle Computer Company", but those memories are over 15 years old at this point, so some failing is expected. I never bought the thing - I went to a CP/M-68K system to transition to 16 bits - but recall hearing people complaining that 8086-based S-100 systems were pretty much useless due to lack of applications. Which matches my experience with CP/M-68K. Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> types: > >> The machines came with an OS called PC-DOS. You could also get > >> CP/M-86, the 8086 version of the previous dominant OS, but it cost > >> extra without providing any extra functionality. PC-DOS came from > > > CP/M-88 and MP/M-88. > > There never ware operating systems with these names. It came with > > optional CP/M 86. I don't know about MP/M 86, but it's quite > > possible. > It was 80, not 88 or 86. CP/M-80 was the "previous dominant OS" I mentioned. Both Greg and I agree that you could get CP/M-86 as an option for the IBM-PC. Others have mentioned running CP/M-80 under an emulator on MS-DOS. > (Also from Cringely's book): > > Choosing a 16-bit processor was easy. Intel, Motorola, > and National Semiconductor were all shipping 16-bit > processors at the time. Intel had the 8086 and 8088 > processors, Motorola had the 68000, and National had its > 16032. The National processor was elegant and powerful; > the Motorola was powerful and easy to write software for; > the Intel 8086 was fairly powerful but had an awkward > memory architecture; the Intel 8088 was an 8086 without > the power. He missed Zilog's z8000. Then again, it's memory architecture wasn't much better than the 8086, and the support chips arrived late and were expensive. There were some desktop Unix boxes built around that thing, but they were nearly as expensive as low end PDP-11s. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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