🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <256@dg.dg.com> uunet!dg!rec (Robert Cousins) writes:
>In article <129994@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> kenobi@sun.UUCP (Rick Kwan - Sun Intercon) writes:
>>I have often wondered what would happen if IBM had chosen the 68000
>>instead of 8088/8086, and tailored a their own simple OS to run on
>>it?  I think IBM could very easily have produced such a thing.  They
>>certainly had the expertise.
>>
>>	Rick Kwan
>>	Sun Microsystems - Intercontinental Operations
>>	kenobi@sun.com
>
>Well, IBM did make a 68k based machine, the IBM 9000 from IBM Instruments.
>If memory serves me correctly, it was written up in BYTE at approximately
>the same time as the PC was becoming popular.  Does anyone care to 
>throw in more info?  

I saw that article.  It was a lab machine running UNIX.  (You could
call it a PC, if you consider an expensive lab computer to be a PC.)
At the time of the article, I did wonder why IBM did not do a
variation of it as a business PC.  On hindsight, there are several
guesses:
    1.	it was a different part of IBM; in fact, it was a recently
	acquired subsidiary.
    2.	cost of parts.  (Discussed extensively in this newsgroup.)
    3.	it was in a very different from the one that the IBM PC was
	targeted at (lab/industrial vs. small business), and thus
	had very different requirements.  That tends to color
	marketing perceptions.
    4.	It redesign effort to transform it into a business computer
	was probably only a little less than starting from scratch.

But this is speculation.  Comments are welcome from anyone who was in
IBM Instruments at the time.

	Rick Kwan
	Sun Microsystems - Intercontinental Operations
	kenobi@sun.com

"Travellin' through hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, boy."
					--Han Solo