https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/06 ... =synd_diggSTARTING MS-DOS... —
The complete history of the IBM PC, part one: The deal of the century
Bill Gates, mysterious deaths, and the business machine that sparked a home revolution.
The complete history of the IBM PC;
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seebart
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vometia
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Interesting, and quite depressing at the same time: considering how vibrant and innovative the microcomputer scene was in the late '70s and early '80s, the PC and in particular Microsoft's "contribution" such as it was seemed such a retrograde step. I still think the whole nerd thing was massively contrived and designed to appeal to the "whizz kid" (ugh) spirit of the age.
I can't deny that IBM's keyboards were a special sort of awesome in a world where they often weren't, but the PC did seem to employ an awful lot of stuff at a lot of expense to achieve comparatively unexciting performance, and I guess my opinion about Microsoft's software is as welcome as anyone else's.
Though my main gripe with the article is the repeated referral to DR as "Digital": I'm not sure that Digital Equipment Corporation has exclusive rights to that name, but since I like Vaxes and I worked for them I kinda lean in the direction of the latter. :p But I speak as an easily confused reader more than "Ms Outraged of Oxford", though I can do that too.
I can't deny that IBM's keyboards were a special sort of awesome in a world where they often weren't, but the PC did seem to employ an awful lot of stuff at a lot of expense to achieve comparatively unexciting performance, and I guess my opinion about Microsoft's software is as welcome as anyone else's.
Though my main gripe with the article is the repeated referral to DR as "Digital": I'm not sure that Digital Equipment Corporation has exclusive rights to that name, but since I like Vaxes and I worked for them I kinda lean in the direction of the latter. :p But I speak as an easily confused reader more than "Ms Outraged of Oxford", though I can do that too.
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Hak Foo
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What's interesting to me is that the original PC was backwards even by the standards of the time.
In particular, the way they did monochrome display was weird. A custom card, a custom monitor, but no graphics?
If they had went the route of some CP/M machines, they could have just gone for "supply an external terminal yourself, our text mode is output over RS-232". That would have left the window open for "graphics on monochrome with compatible terminal" and probably been simpler and cheaper than what they did.
In particular, the way they did monochrome display was weird. A custom card, a custom monitor, but no graphics?
If they had went the route of some CP/M machines, they could have just gone for "supply an external terminal yourself, our text mode is output over RS-232". That would have left the window open for "graphics on monochrome with compatible terminal" and probably been simpler and cheaper than what they did.