🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Aug1.005932.13269@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Don Gillies) writes:
	[some disparaging of old IBM policies omitted]
  
> IBM was so bad for the computer industry in the 60's and early 70's
> that the government decided to TERMINATE the company by taking it to
> court and breaking it up with monopoly and antitrust law.  Talk to
> anyone who lived during this period; they'll tell you they wish the
> government had succeeded.

Anyone? How about Tom Watson? Besides, the suit wasn't because it was bad
for the industry, the issue was unfair competition. IBM won the suit, by the
way. Do we accept accusation by the government as proof of evil nature in
this newsgroup?
  
> Was the IBM PC an example of open architecture?  No; the IBM PC was an
> example of how the computer giant maneuvers to slow the whole industry
> down, so that it doesn't have to compete with itself.  The original
> IBM PC could easily have been 400% faster and more versatile, with
> clean I/O and no kluges in the video system, and maybe a 68000 with
> 16Mb address space, but this would have cut into sales of other IBM
> products.  The IBM PC was crippleHardwareWare, an example of IBM
> laughing at the world, and laughing all the way to the bank.

That's one view.... Another way of looking at it is to remember that IBM not
only published complete hardware specs, they (we?) published the whole
bloomin' BIOS in the OS manuals! Hard to get more open than that, eh? Gosh,
and it took *so*long* for third-party hardware and software to appear for
the PC! Imagine what a wonderland we'd have if only IBM had allowed a third
party to write DOS! Sure, the PC could have had a 68000 (I wish it had
myself, in fact), but a look at the relative cost of (8088+8-bit
peripherals) vs. (68000+16-bit peripherals) should shed some light on
another, less conspiratorial, basis for the hardware choice. But, wait! This
is IBM we're talking about, the Great Satan...you must be right. Damn. Too
bad they got away with sabotaging the PC market.

(Disclaimer: Yeah, I work for them. I've never worked on PC development, and
I've never said anything that could be considered an official view of IBM. I
speak only for myself, and I like it that way.)

     Mike Jones  |  AIX Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

I can give you my word, but I know what it's worth and you don't.
	- Nero Wolfe, OVER MY DEAD BODY