From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed May 20 01:45:02 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA20105 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Wed, 20 May 1998 01:45:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de (dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de [139.174.243.252]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA19892 for ; Wed, 20 May 1998 01:44:27 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA20151 for freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG; Wed, 20 May 1998 10:43:54 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from olli) Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 10:43:54 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme Message-Id: <199805200843.KAA20151@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Original PC (was: talk (fwd)) Newsgroups: list.freebsd-hackers Organization: Administration Heim 3 Reply-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 RZTUC(3) PL2] Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In list.freebsd-hackers Greg Lehey wrote: > Did it really take IBM so long to develop the PC? My recollection was > that it was a sort of half-hearted effort after the devastating > success of the 5100. In any case, the obvious reason for the choice > of processor was the software available--CP/M 86 and 86-DOS for the > 8088, nothing for the 68K. Ok, that sounds reasonable. On the other hand, I guess that a team of programmers would have been able to port the old 86-DOS to 68k in a few weeks. > On top of that, the 8088 was cheaper > because it had 8 bit memory (remember that most chips in those days > were single bit). There was also an 68000-8 with external 8 bit bus. > I don't think they had the slightest concern about > attacking their mainframe machines, which were as fast as they needed > to be (quite literally). Agreed. :-) Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, Leibnizstr. 18-61, 38678 Clausthal, Germany (Info: finger userinfo:olli@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message