09-11-2016, 07:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-11-2016, 07:59 PM by Mike Watterson.)
Yes, IBM didn't ask me about using DOS from Microsoft and the 8088 CPU in a rig built out of a catalogue in 1980. I could have given them good advice, but then, in the minds of IBM, it wasn't a serious product. That's why they chose a cheap bad architecture not-really-16bit cpu based on 8085/Z80 with 64K segments and subcontracted the OS to MS, who they knew didn't have one and were only buying in QDOS, reverse engineered from CP/M 86.
There were better CPUs, at same price that had proper linear memory, even ones already made by or used by IBM. There were better OSes than CP/M-86 or Microsoft's clone of it, but they didn't work on an 8088 or 8086, and badly on the 80186, it needed the 80286, but most 80286 and many 80386 only ever ran in 8088/8086 brain dead mode. The IBM PC and DOS held back the industry and most small business computing by at least 10 years, nearly 18 years.
Almost always things are not about the best technical decision, or even the money, but company politics and egos. Or patents. 3G was inferior in many ways to GSM and was simply a wider band version of the poor USA CDMA. But USA companies wanted into the patent pool. So we got "cell breathing" and then the HSPA kludge later (3G was only 340Kbps approx). 3G was political.
There were better CPUs, at same price that had proper linear memory, even ones already made by or used by IBM. There were better OSes than CP/M-86 or Microsoft's clone of it, but they didn't work on an 8088 or 8086, and badly on the 80186, it needed the 80286, but most 80286 and many 80386 only ever ran in 8088/8086 brain dead mode. The IBM PC and DOS held back the industry and most small business computing by at least 10 years, nearly 18 years.
Almost always things are not about the best technical decision, or even the money, but company politics and egos. Or patents. 3G was inferior in many ways to GSM and was simply a wider band version of the poor USA CDMA. But USA companies wanted into the patent pool. So we got "cell breathing" and then the HSPA kludge later (3G was only 340Kbps approx). 3G was political.
