30 years of PC
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I was there. I had an Apple 2e when the PC came out. My first PC-class machine was a Sperry XT in 1983. If you can picture it, the thing was MASSIVE. It weighed in at about 60 pounds, and you had to install the memory CHIPS one at a time. Floppy drives were 5-1/4 inch FULL HEIGHT drives, and 20MB hard drives were considered "too large to fill up". The common yardstick of compatibility was whether or not and how well a given computer could run Microsoft Flight Simulator.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997I learned to program on an HP 9845 []. I was a draftsman at a civil engineering firm in high school and got to use the computer after the engineer went home at night. I even had my own cassette tape. That was thirty four years past. I had stopped climbing trees at that point. The rest is (literally) history.
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And don't they just wish they hadn't? They were the major computing company - if you wanted a computer, you probably bought it and all the software available from them. But they made it open source hardware, and an external OS. Despite PS/2 and OS/2, they couldn't put the genie back in the bottle, and look where they are now...
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
The "open source" hardware was an accident :) IBM published the hardware schematics and the firmware BIOS in a technical reference manual - like they did for everything else they made - that made it very easy for others manufactures to make "PC compatible" computers.
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It was on this day 30 years ago, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer[^]. I remember using the AT and XT versions in my school in mid 90s to write GWBASIC programs.
I still have two of them that work sitting in my attic
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It was on this day 30 years ago, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer[^]. I remember using the AT and XT versions in my school in mid 90s to write GWBASIC programs.
If you were using IBM PCs, then you were using PC-DOS, which came with BASICA not GWBASIC.
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If you were using IBM PCs, then you were using PC-DOS, which came with BASICA not GWBASIC.
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The "open source" hardware was an accident :) IBM published the hardware schematics and the firmware BIOS in a technical reference manual - like they did for everything else they made - that made it very easy for others manufactures to make "PC compatible" computers.
They were used to that from the mainframes. I remember reading though some of the OS source code looking for the reason I was getting a specific error message. IBM was used to having proprietary hardware, so what was the risk of detailing everything? The PC changed that, but their documenting department didn't realize it.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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It was on this day 30 years ago, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer[^]. I remember using the AT and XT versions in my school in mid 90s to write GWBASIC programs.
I was pi$$ed off because IBM had the audacity to use the initials PC. I had been selling a lot of other personal computers at the time (Apple, Processor Tech, IMSAI, etc.) and for IBM to come in an take ownership of the term "personal computer" was an affront to all the other manufacturers. But to the unwashed thousands, IBM, meant "computer", all the others were toys, even though IBM specs, as usual, were middle of the road. The phrase at the time for any computer was, "You can buy better than IBM, but you can't pay more." I then worked for a software publisher that took programs converted from other OS's to the PC's and doubled the price, just because they could. I was equally enraged when Microsoft took over the universally used "DOC" extension as their own proprietary file format.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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The one I used did not have a hard disk, a boot floppy was required and we used MS-DOS boot disks. After MS-DOS fully booted up and showed the command prompt, the boot disk was removed and application disks were inserted. I am sure I used GW-BASIC.
I'm just saying, MS-DOS is not what was used on the IBM PC. PC-DOS was used. MS-DOS was used on the clones. It wasn't until years later that people started using MS-DOS on IBM PCs as well.. But most of the time, IBM PCs/XTs/ATs ran PC-DOS, which came with BASICA, not MS-DOS, which came with GWBASIC. You couldn't run BASICA on a clone because it required the ROM that was on the PC that wasn't available on clones.
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And don't they just wish they hadn't? They were the major computing company - if you wanted a computer, you probably bought it and all the software available from them. But they made it open source hardware, and an external OS. Despite PS/2 and OS/2, they couldn't put the genie back in the bottle, and look where they are now...
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
My 1st PC usage was a first a software PC emulator on my Atari ST... Then a hardware one! (Now thats (PC Speed ( came with Dos2!)))! A Lotus123 copy, asEasyAs123 was the only reason at the time, the ST had things like Calamus and much better WIMP than the PC could imagine at the time. The ST having a 68000 and some decent graphics hardware was a lot of fun but I was just dissapointed by the PC hardware and the x86 so never really had any fun at machine-code level on a PC, C# only.... I helped wire up the school Nimbus (8085s!)/Novell network in about 1988, and my 1st built clone at the time which was an 8086, with a 5.25 and 3.5 floppy... When windows 2 came out it was just about runable but it wasn't long till my 1st harddisk which was a 30MB hardcard (RLL interface), I've been through every DOS AND Windows! since v2 of each... Neal
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It was on this day 30 years ago, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer[^]. I remember using the AT and XT versions in my school in mid 90s to write GWBASIC programs.
