#68010
4 messages in this thread
Larry,
Again..Apple had been around for about 5 or 6 years when IBM entered
the market. Apple was fairly well established in some schools at that time,
but the general populus had no idea what personal computing was all about.
Good or bad, IBM exposed these folks to personal computing. Those of
us who saw thru those initials and saw the old technology inside the machines
didn't bite….but lots and lots of folks did…because of those initials.
Because of that…that fact that those initials were powerful enough to
lure folks into personal computers and make them commonplace…our current
society is well down the road towards computer literacy. With out that, it
would have taken many years longer.
To be honest…I suspect that the Amiga would not exist today, were it
not for that large base of computer literate users out there. The Amiga chip
set might have been around…in the 'super game machine' they were first
designed for…not in a computer.
Don
Don,
Even if I agreed with your assesment of the situation just prior to IBm
releasing (or did it escape?) the IBM PC, I could still not in good conscience
give them any 'credit' for the advancement of the small computer field. it
would be similar to giving someone credit for being tall or for having blue
eyes. The state of the industry was certainly changed by IBMs entry, but it was
not because IBM did a good job designing it, or because of what it was, but
rather in spite of those things. As I said before, a lot of people jumped on
the bandwagon because they somehow knew that there were a lot of people who
would buy on name alone. I think it was Henry Ford that said "You can't go
wrong underestimating the American public." (it goes for _any_ public of
course, but that weren't his words)
-larry
Larry,
I agree with you basic assesment…that in spite of the product, the
initials sold the machine. But that was my whole point, if IBM didn't have
those initials (so to speak)…the world wouldn't be as computer literate today
as they are.
Certainly it wasn't because their product was a neat thing…it was
only because of those initials….but that doesn't matter in the overall view
of things. IF that company had decided not to enter the Personal Computer
arena…Personal Computers would not be as wide spread today as they are.
Plain and simple.
I didn't say this was their plan, but it did work out that way, and
since IBM was a 'cause'…then they should get the credit inspite of thier
product.
Don
Don, that's an assumption, not a fact…. and I disagree with it. If IBM hadn't
introduced what was not only _old_ technology, but a technology that
demonstrably _reduces_ a programmers ability to create programs above a certain
size, we would be FAR ahead of where we are now. All those programmers, working
with shackles on their keyboards… <shaking head> What makes you think someone
else wouldn't have gone where IBM went – and probably done it right? Hmmm? IBMs
acceptance was partially their name, but the market was ripe for a reliable,
carefully engineered machine, which is what IBM gave them. They jsut saw it
first. You think pet rocks made it because what's-his-name innvented them? Nah,
if you had invented them, the _same_ people would have bought them. The
_market_ was there. It's jsut our sorry state that IBM got there first, is all.
I'm inclined to agree (sort of) with one point you made – we probably wouldn't
have the Amiga, or the Amiga as it is today… we'd probably have more
bitplanes, the _dope_ who limited the addressing capability to 8mb would be
hanging in chains in some dungeon, or writing "I will implement the entire
address range in my next design 2^32 times on a blackboard somewhere in the
institute for Mentally crippled engineers, right alongside the pinhead who
arbitrarily limited the color specifier in EXEC to 8 bits… We'd for sure have
a higher-end processor, and I feel reasonably certain that chips for blitting
and so on wouldn't be limited to tiny areas of memory (Talk about _stupid_…)
like they are today. IBM. <sticking finger down throat> –Ben–