Stolen designs

[David]

Yes, the "business reasons" being that Motorola wasn't
delivering--and kept slipping--the debut of the 68008. I was designing
an RTU (Remote Terminal Unit) at exactly that time, and was forced to
the 8088--against my will and preference--for the same reason.

James Arthur

Failure to deliver is a valid technical reason - the IBM decision to
pick the 8088 was not for such important reasons. A main part of it was
price, but there were probably other "political" reasons too. The
technical guys did not want a 68008 either - they wanted a 68000 with
the full 16-bit databus.

 

[Keith]

Failure to deliver is a valid technical reason - the IBM decision to
pick the 8088 was not for such important reasons. A main part of it was
price, but there were probably other "political" reasons too. The
technical guys did not want a 68008 either - they wanted a 68000 with
the full 16-bit databus.

It doesn't mater squat what the geeks wanted. They weren't getting
Moto. Price had nothing to do with it.

 

[Mark Zenier]

It always seemed to me that both Microsoft and Intel were out of the
mainstream of computing, which is why we wound up locked into the
bizarre, short-sighted kluges we have today. If IBM had picked the 68K
and Digital Research...

But IBM didn't pick, the customers did. Both MS-DOS and CPM/86 were there
on the shelf next to the first IBM PC I saw in a store. The customers
picked the $30 option instead of the $200 one, (or the $500 P-System).

Digital Research was locked into an existing customer base that had
been paying a couple hundred bucks and if they had matched Billy's
price all the Vectors and IMSAIs and all the other companies that had
been building 8086 personal computers for a while would have demanded
a rebate. It would have broken DR even faster than it did.

We can blame IBM for that #$%^& edge triggered interrupt system.

Mark Zenier [email protected]
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

[Mark Zenier]

Intel was selected for business reasons, not technical ones, nor
price.

Like IBM had bought 10% of Intel to get their memory technology.
But then a year or so later Intel decided to get out of the memory
business. Larkin is not the largest business Intel has pissed off.

Mark Zenier [email protected]
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

[tlbs101]

....
Walter LeCroy apparently thought he invented the nanosecond, and got
very upset when anybody else dared to build fast electronics and
compete with him. And I stole nothing but the arrangement of the
connectors on their front panel: my design was original.

I was struggling to keep my startup company alive after developing a
family of modems for Reuters and losing the business because of their
internal politics. They were very cool modems, double-conversion
superhet FSK using all switched-capacitor filters. A guy from Los
Alamos walked into my office and literally threw a LeCroy 4208 on my
desk and said "Can you do this? If you can, I'll buy them." What do
you think I said?
.....

I remember in the mid 1980s, we had to use LeCroy's 8818 and 8828
digitizers (at a blazing 250 MSPS -- they were the fastest things
available). They were constantly in the shop for repairs.

Tom

 

[Terry Given]

I remember in the mid 1980s, we had to use LeCroy's 8818 and 8828
digitizers (at a blazing 250 MSPS -- they were the fastest things
available). They were constantly in the shop for repairs.

Tom

years ago I had a big budget for a whizz-bang scope. So I tried one of
everything. The LeCroy scope crashed - the Amber screen of death. it was
fun watching the salesman try and convince us a scope with dodgy
software was worth $40,000

the other funny thing: one of my tests was to integrate and
differentiate a sine wave, coming from an HP AWG. The LeCroy scope gave
me a cosine that ramped oupwards fairly sharply; no other scope did
this. We surmised it must be integrating its own offset error....

in the end I bought a philips 200MHz combiscope (the little green button
was wonderful) and 3 channels of Tek current probes.

Cheers
Terry

 

[Roy L. Fuchs]

Hiya, Numbya. How's the frothing loon biz these days. We don't see
much of you anymore.

**** off, kook boy.

 

[[email protected]]

Yeah, and the support is also like free software: It may be great, it may be

non-existant... and this is a significant risk if you're going to build a
commercial product around it, since even with source code most mere mortals
aren't going to be able to just dive into, say, some WiMax core and fix some
obscure bug! (This reminds me of all those <$50 wireless routers out there

That's why some companyes hire they programmer. Despite the "free" source..

that run Linux... yeah, they work... mostly... but it's no surprise at all
that so many of them lock-up and/or reboot as soon as you start really
throwing a lot of data through them...)

I did some work on vfc driver in linux/Sparc and was horrified by the kernel
interfaces lack of abstraction and orthogonality. You could try the BSD
family of operating systems they have the policy of "It rights, it works".
Rather than "It works, it right" or "It's good enough" .. for the moment..

I find BSD systems be one of the most stable os so far.

 

[Keith]

Like IBM had bought 10% of Intel to get their memory technology.

IBM bought 30% of Intel to keep Intel afloat (then sold the stock
to keep themselves afloat). IBM also gave Intel their Engineering
Design System (which Intel had rewrite to make usable so they
could design something as complicated as a '286. The memory IP may
have been in that deal, don't remember.

But then a year or so later Intel decided to get out of the memory
business. Larkin is not the largest business Intel has pissed off.

;-)

 

[Keith]

But IBM didn't pick, the customers did. Both MS-DOS and CPM/86 were there
on the shelf next to the first IBM PC I saw in a store. The customers
picked the $30 option instead of the $200 one, (or the $500 P-System).

Yep. Billy knew how to fish.

Digital Research was locked into an existing customer base that had
been paying a couple hundred bucks and if they had matched Billy's
price all the Vectors and IMSAIs and all the other companies that had
been building 8086 personal computers for a while would have demanded
a rebate. It would have broken DR even faster than it did.

We can blame IBM for that #$%^& edge triggered interrupt system.

OMG, yes. ...and a thousand other ISA faults. What a mess. RIP

 

[[email protected]]

Failure to deliver is a valid technical reason - the IBM decision to
pick the 8088 was not for such important reasons.

If that wasn't their reason, it's hard to see why not. If IBM had
gone 68008, our development PC wouldn't have existed. IOW, months
after IBM _shipped_ a finished product, I *still* couldn't get the
Motorola parts, or even a defined release date.

I even tarried a few agonizing months and sketched designs using both
processors, hoping to give Motorola a chance to deliver. At the end of
this period they slipped their delivery schedule (again), then later
slipped yet again. I simply couldn't wait any longer.

A main part of it was
price, but there were probably other "political" reasons too. The
technical guys did not want a 68008 either - they wanted a 68000 with
the full 16-bit databus.

Since the i8086 and MC68000 were both readily available, it seems
fairly obvious that IBM had decided as a company they did NOT want the
full 16-bit bus. I've seen excellent interviews with the original
designers published in various magazines in which they speak for
themselves, so I won't presume to psychoanalyze their motivations.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[[email protected]]

OMG, yes. ...and a thousand other ISA faults. What a mess. RIP

--

IBM did try to sell a good bus system with the Microchannel but being
proprietary, it never really took off.
I still think the old PS/2s are the hardiest PC type machines ever
built. I still have an almost quarter century old mod 70 running as a
file/fax server. If it ever breaks I will get something newer for that
application.

 

[[email protected]]

Since the i8086 and MC68000 were both readily available, it seems
fairly obvious that IBM had decided as a company they did NOT want the
full 16-bit bus. I've seen excellent interviews with the original
designers published in various magazines in which they speak for
themselves, so I won't presume to psychoanalyze their motivations.

I doubt IBM saw the rise of the bloated software we are running on
PCs. They were used to a medium sized business running their whole
operation on a machine about as powerful as the PC-1 5150.
In fact my wife ran her business on my old "first day ship" 5150.
It was the advent of cartoon interfaces that drove the quest for
speed.

 

[John Perry]

IBM did try to sell a good bus system with the Microchannel but being
proprietary, it never really took off.

Remember that the ISA bus was also proprietary. They published fairly
complete specs in the user manuals, but it was still proprietary. In
fact, if there were complete specs, they were kept quiet, since I seem
to remember some early third-party boards were made that conformed to
the spec in the manual, but didn't run in the machines.

ISA took over the world in spite of its inferiority, and was soon
irreplaceable (until it was so far behind technologically that PCI could
get a foothold). That's why PS/2 failed.

John Perry

 

[mc]

IBM did try to sell a good bus system with the Microchannel but being
proprietary, it never really took off.
I still think the old PS/2s are the hardiest PC type machines ever
built. I still have an almost quarter century old mod 70 running as a
file/fax server. If it ever breaks I will get something newer for that
application.

I have a Model 70 that I should put into use somehow. What OS are you
running on yours?

My earlier Model 50 (10-MHz 286) was remarkably RF-quiet. I was into
shortwave listening at the time, and this was one of the few computers that
didn't interfere seriously with the radio.

 

[[email protected]]

I still have an almost quarter century old mod 70 running as a

I have a Model 70 that I should put into use somehow. What OS are you
running on yours?

DOS 6.3 and WFWG 3.11

 

[Gerhard Hoffmann]

Remember that the ISA bus was also proprietary. They published fairly
complete specs in the user manuals, but it was still proprietary.

No, there was no spec at all. They published the circuit diagrams and if you
wanted min/max timings etc in ns you had to do the math yourself based on
circuit analysis and Intel/Moto/National data sheets.

I still have my hand-colorated PC/AT Technical Reference..

regards, Gerhard

 

[Keith]

I doubt IBM saw the rise of the bloated software we are running on
PCs. They were used to a medium sized business running their whole
operation on a machine about as powerful as the PC-1 5150.
In fact my wife ran her business on my old "first day ship" 5150.
It was the advent of cartoon interfaces that drove the quest for
speed.

It could be argued the other way; Moore's law allowed cartoon
interfaces.

 

[Keith]

IBM did try to sell a good bus system with the Microchannel but being
proprietary, it never really took off.

It did take off, though not on home PCs, which wasn't the
intention. Not until PCI became readily available (and reliable)
did MCA go away.

I still think the old PS/2s are the hardiest PC type machines ever
built. I still have an almost quarter century old mod 70 running as a
file/fax server. If it ever breaks I will get something newer for that
application.

If you want an argument, you'll have to go elsewhere. ;-)

 

[Keith]

Remember that the ISA bus was also proprietary. They published fairly
complete specs in the user manuals, but it was still proprietary. In
fact, if there were complete specs, they were kept quiet, since I seem
to remember some early third-party boards were made that conformed to
the spec in the manual, but didn't run in the machines.

There weren't "complete specs". Note that EISA had the same
compatibility problems, even though it was a "complete spec".

ISA took over the world in spite of its inferiority, and was soon
irreplaceable (until it was so far behind technologically that PCI could
get a foothold). That's why PS/2 failed.

I'd argue that the PS/2 didn't fail.