On 05/30/2012 03:30 AM, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Can't resist. First 'PC' here was a Terak running the UCSDp system.
Pascal was the environment. Back in '81. Worked rather well. A home-built CP/M machine was also in the mix at that time. This was before IBM entered the area. They did not invent the PC. They just defined a very popular one. Indeed. And documented it, allowing many vendors to design hardware and software for it. Almost an open platform.
Hm... I had a Cromemco Z-2 in 1979 (if memory serves). It was an "open" platform based on the S-100 bus and I had a choice of operating systems. I used TurboDos, which was more technologically advanced than CP-M. It had hierarchical filesystems (on 1-MB 8" floppies) and was interrupt driven. I then built (integrated) several dozen S-100 based desktops using SuperMicro S-100 CPU boards in the early 1980's. These were very nice systems that even had real oak side panels and worked very well. I also experimented with S-100-based Ethernet controllers, but didn't deploy them thinking that Ethernet would never go anywhere. :-) My systems at that time used RS-232 to connect to the larger systems, VAX-based BSD UNIX, HP 21MX minis and a Masscomp SVR3 UNIX box. But then came the first IBM PC and blew me out of the water. People didn't like it because it was better (it wasn't), or because it was cheaper (it wasn't), but because it was "IBM", and that brought respectability in their eyes to the industry. It was crap-assed hardware running a toy-clown operating system, and the rest is history. Harrumph! Regards, Lew -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org