Stolen designs

[[email protected]]

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

Bill Gates' way of insuring that computers never really got faster,
just more complex.

 

[Mark Zenier]

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.

Might have been just before your time, when the 64 kbit chips made
semi memory really take off. IBM made an announcment that they
were the first with a 64k chip, but the silicon valley outfits'
chips were smaller/cheaper, faster, and only needed one power supply.
It looked (from outside) that that was the point where IBM realized
that they couldn't do it all by themselves, so they bought into Intel.
(I worked for a semi equipment manufacturer and we got a tour of
one of Intel's Oregon fab's back end (testing line) sometime in 1981.
All sort of guys with IBM badges on running around the front end (fab)
part of the plant).

Because the Japanese and Koreans were eating everybodies lunch...

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

 

[Joel Kolstad]

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

Any way you slice it, I think it's still a fair statement that GUIs usually
aren't the limiting factor in computer performance these days, but they have
made PCs tremendously more accessible to the average person... something
like the old CP/M WordStar or the DOS WordPerfect would *never* have passed
the "Grandma" test, even though they were both good-quality, highly-capable
programs for their day.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Any way you slice it, I think it's still a fair statement that GUIs usually
aren't the limiting factor in computer performance these days, but they have
made PCs tremendously more accessible to the average person... something
like the old CP/M WordStar or the DOS WordPerfect would *never* have passed
the "Grandma" test, even though they were both good-quality, highly-capable
programs for their day.

The lovely thing about all this power to make computers accessible is
that it has resulted in excellent engineering machines being made
available a price just about anyone can afford. Snappy floating-point
and 3-D graphics for parametric CAD and number crunching ability for
SPICE and other simulations. I'd sure hate to be stuck in the old days
of sluggish CPUS and tiresome math co-processors.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Jim Thompson]

The lovely thing about all this power to make computers accessible is
that it has resulted in excellent engineering machines being made
available a price just about anyone can afford. Snappy floating-point
and 3-D graphics for parametric CAD and number crunching ability for
SPICE and other simulations. I'd sure hate to be stuck in the old days
of sluggish CPUS and tiresome math co-processors.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Amen! I started out doing Spice 2G6 on a VAX780, all text-based :-(

...Jim Thompson

 

[mc]

The lovely thing about all this power to make computers accessible is

that it has resulted in excellent engineering machines being made
available a price just about anyone can afford. Snappy floating-point
and 3-D graphics for parametric CAD and number crunching ability for
SPICE and other simulations. I'd sure hate to be stuck in the old days
of sluggish CPUS and tiresome math co-processors.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Bingo! Today's teenage gamer PC makes an excellent engineering workstation.
I can remember when engineering workstations were strange, big, expensive
things...

 

[Brian]

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

Saturation into a cartoon world with a cartoon-watching user based forced
cartoon interfaces.

 

[Brian]

and 3-D graphics for parametric CAD and number crunching ability for
SPICE and other simulations. I'd sure hate to be stuck in the old days
of sluggish CPUS and tiresome math co-processors.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

Machines made for gamers really have made engineering machines easy to come
by for next to nothing!

 

[joseph2k]

And Motorola took the 6800 guys to court. So they changed it into 6502

asfaik.

The Intersil (Siliconix?) 6500 line predates the Motorola 6800 line by over
a year. There should not have been any lawsuits between them, the designs
and instruction sets were far too different. I have used both.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

asfaik.

The Intersil (Siliconix?) 6500 line predates the Motorola 6800 line by over
a year. There should not have been any lawsuits between them, the designs
and instruction sets were far too different. I have used both.

Reverse of that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technologies_6502

This also fits with my recollections of the time.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Roy L. Fuchs]

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


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.

That's what Mac OS X is based on.

 

[Roy L. Fuchs]

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

Due to the fact that it was proprietary... TOO proprietary. They
even charged peripheral device makers to use it. Talk about scaring
off your own customers...

I still think the old PS/2s are the hardiest PC type machines ever
built.

Naaaahhh... Everex built the tanks.

 

[Roy L. Fuchs]

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

I knew we would figure out what you were sooner or later...

 

[Roy L. Fuchs]

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

But the micro-channel bus that is found on them did.

 

[krw]

But the micro-channel bus that is found on them did.

Wrong.

 

[krw]

Amen! I started out doing Spice 2G6 on a VAX780, all text-based :-(

I started out doing circuit sim on an engineering model of a 360/85
with a 2741 (Selectric style) terminal with a 134.5baud acoustical
coupler.

 

[krw]

Saturation into a cartoon world with a cartoon-watching user based forced
cartoon interfaces.

Yeah, I like Rocky and Bullwinkle too.

 

[krw]

I knew we would figure out what you were sooner or later...

Gee, DimBulb, we never have to wait long for you to tell us what
you are.

 

[Ken Smith]

Was that lie stated publicly or in private conversation..?
(ie one can prove they lied)

It was not in public so it would me my word against their $1M lawyers. I
ended up using the Philips micro.

Anyway the x86 instruction set is a hodgepodge compared to m68k. So it doesn't
matter too much..

"They sprayed instructions around to cover their tracks" was said when it
was introduced. Did once find a use for the ASCII adjust for (thing)
instructions.

 

[Ken Smith]

And the worst is getting into a rental car at night when it is raining and
the rear window is fogged up.

I was driving a rented Ford Exploder for this last week. When I
wanted the head lights on, I turned on the rear wiper.

I think it is becoming a safety issue. We really need a standard for
where the important switches are.