IBM2Dos

[Maus]

Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On 29 Nov 2021 14:55:40 GMT

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

He never did.

IBM lost the PC market to the clone makers not to Microsoft it was
and is a completely open market now dominated by Dell. The PC clones slowly
but surely killed off every other hardware architecture so that now apart
from tablets, netbooks and Z-series mainframes everything is essentially a
PC from laptops to rack mount servers by way of blades.

What Microsoft did was take control of the PC operating system
market by pushing Windows (3.1 IIRC) on everyone and forcing a shift away
from DOS applications. That was done by giving PC vendors a huge discount
on the Windows license (one told me they paid £5 per machine when at the
time buying your own copy cost £200) provided they installed it on *every*
machine they sold. They coupled this with dropping the DOS versions of all
their applications and of course making Windows non too good at running
most of the DOS applications around because nearly all of them bypassed DOS
and BIOS to get performance.

By the time they got their wrists slapped for it the damage was
done - Microsoft owned the PC operating system market - just in time to
destroy DesqView-X which could run multiple DOS and Windows applications
simultaneously - as well as WordPerfect which never made the transition to
Windows despite being dominant on DOS.

Microsoft didn't have any kind of competitor on the PC OS market
until Linux came along which they actively tried to kill until they shifted
strategy and stopped caring about the PC OS market.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 29 Nov 2021 14:55:40 GMT

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

He never did.

He probably meant how Microsoft took over the IBM Software (MS-DOS) for
the PC. But you mention that in your second paragraph below. :-)

Wikipedia has some info. Not sure if it covers all of what was going on.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
IBM lost the PC market to the clone makers not to Microsoft it was
and is a completely open market now dominated by Dell. The PC clones slowly
but surely killed off every other hardware architecture so that now apart
from tablets, netbooks and Z-series mainframes everything is essentially a
PC from laptops to rack mount servers by way of blades.
What Microsoft did was take control of the PC operating system
market by pushing Windows (3.1 IIRC) on everyone and forcing a shift away
from DOS applications.

First they took over the OS market with MS-DOS, but also were about the only
supplier for BASIC; not only for the IBM PC but almost the whole home
computer rage, killing off CP/M in the process.

[...]

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2021 14:48:44 -0500

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
First they took over the OS market with MS-DOS,

Not really, IBM did that for them by commissioning PC-DOS and
arranging to get a lot of DOS software written (a new DOS program every day
I recall being advertised). That killed off CP/M-86, but there was
competition and DR-DOS was a very popular alternative to MS-DOS also there
was GEM and DesqView-X. I'm pretty sure they were in serious danger of
losing the market before they pulled the pre-installed Windows on every PC
stunt.

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
but also were about the only supplier for BASIC;

Hardly, selling a crappy BASIC to Commodore, Tandy and Apple got
them started but nobody else in the eight bit era used their code -
everyone else made tighter and faster BASICs - in the Newbrain a full "16K"
BASIC fitted in 4K of ROM - there was a bit of a celebration when that was
achieved.

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
not only for the IBM PC but almost the whole home
computer rage, killing off CP/M in the process.

A lot of the early CP/M adopters didn't drop it because they had
become used to multi-user and networked systems based around MP/M and
MMMOST. A lot of them turned into unix early adopters and skipped the PC
completely.

When the AT came out one of our customers wanted us to port our
MP/M applications to it because it was new and shiny and IBM. I pointed out
that the AT was a single user system and he wouldn't be able to attach
terminals to it (he had four or five terminals in constant use with a
database application). He didn't believe us at first - surely IBM's
"Advanced Technology" with 16 bits and huge memory could do better than the
MP/M he'd been using for years, we must be mistaken (veiled implication
lying)! So I told him to go and ask the IBM salesman about adding
terminals and running multi-user applications. When next we saw him he had
confirmed what we said and couldn't understand why IBM were so proud of
something so primitive.

We sold him an Altos XENIX system next (they got a lot more
mileage out of an 80286 than IBM ever did - a couple of 80186s doing I/O
helped).

I heard similar stories from other people in the "vertical market"
business at trade shows and supplier events.

Not many people noticed it because the CP/M and MP/M early adopters
were swamped first by the "Now it's a real computer IBM made it" brigade
and then by the clones making it cheap for those who didn't care about the
name. But very few of them switched to the PC and the PC users didn't start
to catch up until Novell by which time they were a nearly invisible minority
mostly using unix boxes with Intel or Motorola or MIPS or ... it didn't
matter much they all had a QIC tape on the front and a bunch of 9 pin
RS-232 sockets on the back, the bigger ones were accused of looking like
fridges.

[Robin Vowels]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 29 Nov 2021 14:55:40 GMT

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

He never did.
IBM lost the PC market to the clone makers not to Microsoft it was
and is a completely open market now dominated by Dell. The PC clones slowly
but surely killed off every other hardware architecture so that now apart
from tablets, netbooks and Z-series mainframes everything is essentially a
PC from laptops to rack mount servers by way of blades.
What Microsoft did was take control of the PC operating system
market by pushing Windows (3.1 IIRC) on everyone and forcing a shift away
from DOS applications.

.
IBM and Microsoft were working in a co-operative venture,
that enabled OS/2 and Windows to be run on the same
computer.
.
IBM gave up on that venture after OS/2 Warp.
.
DOS was still popular and in use long after windows 3.1
.
I still use it, including with Windows 3.1 and Word 1.1a.
.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
That was done by giving PC vendors a huge discount
on the Windows license (one told me they paid £5 per machine when at the
time buying your own copy cost £200) provided they installed it on *every*
machine they sold. They coupled this with dropping the DOS versions of all
their applications and of course making Windows non too good at running
most of the DOS applications around because nearly all of them bypassed DOS
and BIOS to get performance.
By the time they got their wrists slapped for it the damage was
done - Microsoft owned the PC operating system market - just in time to
destroy DesqView-X which could run multiple DOS and Windows applications
simultaneously - as well as WordPerfect which never made the transition to
Windows despite being dominant on DOS.
Microsoft didn't have any kind of competitor on the PC OS market

.
There was OS/2 -- a far better OS than Windows.
.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
until Linux came along which they actively tried to kill until they shifted
strategy and stopped caring about the PC OS market.

[Bob Eager]

IBM and Microsoft were working in a co-operative venture, that enabled
OS/2 and Windows to be run on the same computer.
.
IBM gave up on that venture after OS/2 Warp.

It wasn't co-operative. Microsoft hated it.

Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that if IBM got Windows running inside
OS/2, he'd east a floppy disk.

IBM did it, but Steve reneged. IBM distributed free chocolate floppy
disks on a number of occasions.

The last IBM version of OS/2 (which I have) supported Windows 3.1
programs. Even some Win32 ones - I have my Palm Pilot software running
nicely.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Bob Eager

IBM and Microsoft were working in a co-operative venture, that enabled
OS/2 and Windows to be run on the same computer.
.
IBM gave up on that venture after OS/2 Warp.

It wasn't co-operative. Microsoft hated it.
Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that if IBM got Windows running inside
OS/2, he'd east a floppy disk.
IBM did it, but Steve reneged. IBM distributed free chocolate floppy
disks on a number of occasions.
The last IBM version of OS/2 (which I have) supported Windows 3.1
programs. Even some Win32 ones - I have my Palm Pilot software running
nicely.

I drove up to a Bank of America (or whatever it was called then)
ATM that was rebooting after a thunderstorm once, and it was OS/2.

Only time I ever saw a copy..

[Questor]

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.

Then around 1990 Microsoft did the rope-a-dope with IBM over their collaboration
on the OS/2 operating system. They dragged their feet on their contribution to
the project while moving ahead with Windows 3.0 and then 3.1. I think there is
a chapter about this in:

Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM
Paul Carroll
1993; Crown Publishing Group

This is part of what eventually killed WordPerfect, who placed their bets on
OS/2.

[Dick]

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.
Then around 1990 Microsoft did the rope-a-dope with IBM over their collaboration
on the OS/2 operating system. They dragged their feet on their contribution to
the project while moving ahead with Windows 3.0 and then 3.1. I think there is
Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM
Paul Carroll
1993; Crown Publishing Group
This is part of what eventually killed WordPerfect, who placed their bets on
OS/2.

MCA -- micro-channel architecture.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s
when they tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out
with a proprietary bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm
getting a memory error on the correct acronym.) Anyway, it was
spurned by the industry and the clone makers went right on doing
their thing.

s/reign/rein/

The metaphor refers to horses, not monarchs.

IBM realized that they had made a mistake when they completely opened
the box, publishing detailed technical specifications that enabled
anyone to clone it. The introduction of the MicroChannel bus was their
attempt to close the box again by going to a proprietary bus. But as
with Pandora, it was too late. As you said, the industry thumbed its
collective nose at IBM and came up with EISA - and the architecture
remained open. (In the Pandora legend, the last thing left in the
box was Hope.)

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

Their big error with Microchannel IMO was that it addressed all the
"issues" with ISA that IBM's engineers and technicians and managers
cared about, but customers didn't care about things like "better
grounding" and "not having to have an expensively trained technician
add cards" and the like. They cared about whether it would run their
workloads any faster and the answer was, in general, no.

except the communication group performance kneecaped the PS2
microchannel cards ... part of its fiercely trying to fight off
client/server and distributed computing ... trying to preserve its dumb
terminal paradigm/business.

AWD (workstation division) had done the PC/RT with PC/AT bus ... and
did some of their own high performance cards ... like its own 4mbit
token-ring card.

Then with RS/6000 and microchannel ... AWD was told they couldn't do
their own microchannel cards, they had to use the (performance
knee-capped) PS2 microchannel cards. For instance the PS2 microchannel
($799) 16mbit token-ring card had lower (per card) throughput than the PC/RT
4mbit token-ring card. There was joke that if RS/6000 was limited to the
(knee-capped) PS2 microchannel cards ... for lots of things, RS/6000
wouldn't have any better throughput than PS2/486.

By comparison, there were $69 10mbitethernet cards with significantly
higher throughput than the ($799) 16mbit token-ring microchannel card
(nearly ten times the performance at 1/10th the cost).

In the late 80s, a senior disk (division) engineer got a talk scheduled
at the internal, world-wide, annual, communication group conference
supposedly on 3174 performance, but he opened his talk with the comment
that the communication group was going to be responsible for the demise
of the disk division. The disk division was seeing a drop in disk sales
with customers moving to more client/server and distributed computing
friendly platforms. The disk division had come up with a number of
solutions that were constantly being vetoed by the communication group
(with its corporate strategic ownership of everything that crossed
datacenter walls).

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Their big error with Microchannel IMO was that it addressed all the
"issues" with ISA that IBM's engineers and technicians and managers
cared about, but customers didn't care about things like "better
grounding" and "not having to have an expensively trained technician
add cards" and the like. They cared about whether it would run their
workloads any faster and the answer was, in general, no.

Wasn't MCA technically superior to ISA? From what I read is that MCA was
not compatible, so users has to buy new cards for PS/2 machines.

The "alliance" of clone (Gang of Nine) manufacturers exploited it to
create EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture), which was
succeeded by PCI in 1993. According to Wikipedia:

| This provided virtually all of the technical advantages of MCA, while
| remaining compatible with existing 8-bit and 16-bit cards, and (most
| enticing to system and card makers) minimal licensing cost.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Industry_Standard_Architecture>

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Thu, 02 Dec 2021 21:26:34 -0500

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Their big error with Microchannel IMO was that it addressed all the
"issues" with ISA that IBM's engineers and technicians and managers
cared about, but customers didn't care about things like "better
grounding" and "not having to have an expensively trained technician
add cards" and the like. They cared about whether it would run their
workloads any faster and the answer was, in general, no.

Wasn't MCA technically superior to ISA? From what I read is that MCA was
not compatible, so users has to buy new cards for PS/2 machines.

Yes to both - but the big killer was that manufacturers had to
license MCA from IBM and it wasn't cheap to do so. Nearly all the clone
makers looked at the license fee, the terms, the lack of ISA card support
and decided their future lay elsewhere.

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
The "alliance" of clone (Gang of Nine) manufacturers exploited it to
create EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture), which was

Yep when it became obvious that IBM had a point and ISA was out of
steam and that license fee was still there cooperation seemed like a good
plan. There was VLB (Vesa Local Bus IIRC) somewhere in there, just before
EISA IIRC (that's not a bus) and of course PCIe after PCI. I'm sure there's
something coming soon PCIe's starting to feel long in the tooth - USB4 or
USB5 probably going by the way that's cranking up speeds - system looking
something like this at the chip/board level:

RAM <DDRn channel>|cache|<USBm> Peripherals
RAM <DDRn channel>|cache|<USBm> Peripherals
RAM <DDRn channel>|xCPUs|<USBm> Peripherals
RAM <DDRn channel>|cache|<USBm> Peripherals
RAM <DDRn channel>|cache|<USBm> Peripherals

Now anyone in the back who thinks it looks a tad familiar if you
change the labels please keep quiet the kids think it's all new ideas.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 02 Dec 2021 21:26:34 -0500

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Their big error with Microchannel IMO was that it addressed all the
"issues" with ISA that IBM's engineers and technicians and managers
cared about, but customers didn't care about things like "better
grounding" and "not having to have an expensively trained technician
add cards" and the like. They cared about whether it would run their
workloads any faster and the answer was, in general, no.

Wasn't MCA technically superior to ISA? From what I read is that MCA was
not compatible, so users has to buy new cards for PS/2 machines.

Yes to both - but the big killer was that manufacturers had to
license MCA from IBM and it wasn't cheap to do so. Nearly all the clone
makers looked at the license fee, the terms, the lack of ISA card support
and decided their future lay elsewhere.

Interesting to see, how IBM could be so blind not to have forecasted
this. OK, they did big business with large corporations before the birth
of the IBM PC in 1981. But until the release of PS/2, six years
passed. IMO enough time to gather some experience with small companies
and the use in home offices.

Heck, IBM could even had asked Charlie Chaplin (or his look alike). He
would have known better. ;-)

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 03 Dec 2021 09:46:49 -0500

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
Interesting to see, how IBM could be so blind not to have forecasted
this. OK, they did big business with large corporations before the birth
of the IBM PC in 1981.

I think that's the point. IBM were never really a hardware company
they provided hardware and software as part of a package that included the
up front consultancy and ongoing support. The main business was in the
service contracts, training courses, media and stationary supplies, forward
planning consultancy and any other ongoing contracts they could find to sell
once they had a customer on the hook.

The PC was supposed to fit into this like the phone systems and
tape storage racks. It worked for a bit but then customers started to buy
clones instead (first as well) because they were cheaper and faster and in
the shop round the corner. Even when they had real PCs supplied by IBM they
kept putting competitor's expansion cards and drives in rather than let
their IBM rep tell them what to buy as normal.

The PS/2 was an attempt to fix this - IBM didn't care much about
the mass market but their captive market was finding out that there was
more to the world than IBM ... not good from IBM's perspective. So enter
the PS/2, make the bus expensive so their won't be much competition for
the expansion cards or the machines then our customers will have to buy
from us to get the real IBM experience that they can't get elsewhere. OK
that didn't quite go as planned - try something else ...

... which worked out a treat in the end, they still have the
Z-series market working just the way they want it and they even got some
dosh out of Lenovo for that pesky PC business.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 02 Dec 2021 21:26:34 -0500

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
Wasn't MCA technically superior to ISA? From what I read is that MCA was
not compatible, so users has to buy new cards for PS/2 machines.

Yes to both - but the big killer was that manufacturers had to
license MCA from IBM and it wasn't cheap to do so. Nearly all the clone
makers looked at the license fee, the terms, the lack of ISA card support
and decided their future lay elsewhere.

One exception I recall is Tandy / Radio Shack.
I don't see much of them anymore...

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Thu, 02 Dec 2021 20:45:25 GMT

Post by Questor
It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s

by tripping over the shotgun while bolting them door on the empty
stable ...

Post by Questor
when they tried to reign in control of the clone market

... to where the horses had long since bolted and were temporarily
enjoying quality pasture with Compaq and endless acres of open scrub in
China before mostly legging it off to the mega-livery yards Dell and HP.

See Charlie he did mean reign :)

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 02 Dec 2021 20:45:25 GMT

Post by Questor
It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s

by tripping over the shotgun while bolting them door on the empty
stable ...

Congratulations; you have won the Metaphor of the Day award.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Questor
when they tried to reign in control of the clone market

... to where the horses had long since bolted and were temporarily
enjoying quality pasture with Compaq and endless acres of open scrub in
China before mostly legging it off to the mega-livery yards Dell and HP.
See Charlie he did mean reign :)

A horse is a hoarse? Off course, of coarse.

[John Levine]

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else?

Microchannel for the PS/2. It was better than ISA but not enough better to
pay license fees.

Post by Questor
Then around 1990 Microsoft did the rope-a-dope with IBM over their collaboration
on the OS/2 operating system.

It was earlier than that. I was at IBM's 1984 PS/2 announcement event in Miami Beach,
where I met Bill Gates in a bar the night before (he ignored me) and the evening's
entertainment was the Beach Boys. At that point it was all about Microsoft OS/2,
but it's clear that even then Bill was planning to put all the effort into Windows,
not OS/2.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 01:45:07 -0000 (UTC)

Post by John Levine
Microchannel for the PS/2. It was better than ISA but not enough better
to pay license fees.

The mouse and keyboard connector from the PS/2 did amazingly well
though. I still have a few adaptors to plug USB devices into them.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 01:45:07 -0000 (UTC)

Post by John Levine
Microchannel for the PS/2. It was better than ISA but not enough better
to pay license fees.

The mouse and keyboard connector from the PS/2 did amazingly well
though. I still have a few adaptors to plug USB devices into them.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

I'm typing this on a keyboard with a PC style barrel connector,
connected to a PC to PS/2 adaptor, connected to a PS/2 to USB adaptor...

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Fri, 3 Dec 2021 01:45:07 -0000 (UTC)

Post by John Levine
Microchannel for the PS/2. It was better than ISA but not enough better
to pay license fees.

The mouse and keyboard connector from the PS/2 did amazingly well
though. I still have a few adaptors to plug USB devices into them.

I'm typing this on a keyboard with a PC style barrel connector,
connected to a PC to PS/2 adaptor, connected to a PS/2 to USB adaptor...

My first PC in 1995 (Commodore user before :-) had two PS/2 connectors,
IIRC. I think keyboard and mouse were plugged in there. It also had two
serial ports, where I plugged in a trusty 34.600 baud modem a year later.

Cannot remember what ports a desktop had (my last desktop; switched to
notebooks thereafter) I bought late 1999. A 56.000 baud modem was plugged
into one of these - probably serial, and PS/2 faded into history already.

[Kurt Weiske]

To: Andreas Kohlbach
-=> Andreas Kohlbach wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

AK> Cannot remember what ports a desktop had (my last desktop; switched to
AK> notebooks thereafter) I bought late 1999. A 56.000 baud modem was
AK> plugged into one of these - probably serial, and PS/2 faded into
AK> history already.

Most only had an AT-style keyboard port. All of the other ports were on add-
on cards.

I had an AT; it had a ISA multi-IO card with 2 serial, one parallel and one
game port. Video was on a separate card. If you had a bus mouse or a
proprietary CD-ROM, they had their own card. Ditto for sound.

The hard disk controller was also on a card, first MFM using two ribbon
cables and later 40-pin ATA ribbon cables. Kids these days don't know how
easy they've got it with regards to cable management. :)

kurt weiske | kweiske at realitycheckbbs dot org
| http://realitycheckbbs.org
| 1:218/***@fidonet


--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
--- Synchronet 3.19a-Win32 NewsLink 1.113
* realitycheckBBS - Aptos, CA - telnet://realitycheckbbs.org

[Dave Garland]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
I'm typing this on a keyboard with a PC style barrel connector,
connected to a PC to PS/2 adaptor, connected to a PS/2 to USB adaptor...

Oy veh, potential failure point stacked upon failure point. Everything
I ever did that involved stacked adaptors.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
I'm typing this on a keyboard with a PC style barrel connector,
connected to a PC to PS/2 adaptor, connected to a PS/2 to USB adaptor...

Oy veh, potential failure point stacked upon failure point. Everything
I ever did that involved stacked adaptors.

Plugged into a dual KVM switch..

[Dan Espen]

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.

MCA - Micro Channel Architecture

This was to remove the restrictions on ISA which were supposedly
unfixable. In short order EISA appeared and IBM's new cash cow the
PS/2s started to lose market share.

Post by Questor
Then around 1990 Microsoft did the rope-a-dope with IBM over their collaboration
on the OS/2 operating system. They dragged their feet on their contribution to
the project while moving ahead with Windows 3.0 and then 3.1. I think there is
Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM
Paul Carroll
1993; Crown Publishing Group
This is part of what eventually killed WordPerfect, who placed their bets on
OS/2.

The culture clash between IBM and MSFT developers must have been epic.

I remember reading that IBM wanted it's mainframe graphics architecture
GDDM to be used in OS/2. I can just imagine the MSFT guys reading up on
GDDM.

[Maus]

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.

This was what I wanted to know, and there is very little about it. I
remember that anyone who wanted to take the IBM route had to pay some
money down, including (Bernie Sugar(sp?)) who resented it fiercely.
Looking back, I wonder if os/2 was a sort of chromebook is some sort
followup?

I suppose the IBM was conflicted between the Boca Reton branch, and
their main business,

Post by Questor
Then around 1990 Microsoft did the rope-a-dope with IBM over their collaboration
on the OS/2 operating system. They dragged their feet on their contribution to
the project while moving ahead with Windows 3.0 and then 3.1. I think there is
Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM
Paul Carroll
1993; Crown Publishing Group
This is part of what eventually killed WordPerfect, who placed their bets on
OS/2.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Maus

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.

This was what I wanted to know, and there is very little about it. I
remember that anyone who wanted to take the IBM route had to pay some
money down, including (Bernie Sugar(sp?)) who resented it fiercely.
Looking back, I wonder if os/2 was a sort of chromebook is some sort
followup?

I don't have the feeling of a Chromebook with OS/2. My first PC came with
Windows 95, and a computer store sold off OS/2 Warp 3 (or was it
4?). They had like 50 packages stapled somewhere on the floor. I guess I
was one of the few to pick one up. It just felt like "another Windows" to
me.

Originally I went to the shop to get a CPU cache extension my motherboard
supported. Added IIRC 256 KB to the existing 256 KB. Wow, 512 KB CPU
cache - imagine what you can do with that! ;-) So I picked up a box of
OS/2 too.

At home I managed to kill the existing Windows 95. I had no boot disk and
the CD-ROM (or the Windows installation CD itself) had no autoboot. I
called a friend if he could create an MS-DOS boot disk for me. But "he
was too busy". So I went to a small local computer store and asked the
guy to create one. He asked for the equivalent of $5 today! SOAB! But I
needed Windows 95 back, so I paid. Never went to that shop again.

Next time this "friend" got a virus and asked me, if I could come over -
again - to remove it, I was "busy".

[Peter Flass]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Maus

Post by Questor

Post by Maus
Would anyone recommend a book (Kindle if possible) or article about
the time that Bill Gates took over the control of PC market from IBM?

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.) Anyway, it was spurned by the industry and the clone makers
went right on doing their thing.

This was what I wanted to know, and there is very little about it. I
remember that anyone who wanted to take the IBM route had to pay some
money down, including (Bernie Sugar(sp?)) who resented it fiercely.
Looking back, I wonder if os/2 was a sort of chromebook is some sort
followup?

I don't have the feeling of a Chromebook with OS/2. My first PC came with
Windows 95, and a computer store sold off OS/2 Warp 3 (or was it
4?). They had like 50 packages stapled somewhere on the floor. I guess I
was one of the few to pick one up. It just felt like "another Windows" to
me.

When OS/2 was in it’s death throes IBM came out with “Workspace on Demand”
(WSOD) that was sort of like Chrome or an XTerm where your customized OS/2
was downloaded to whatever machine you logged on to.

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
..
At home I managed to kill the existing Windows 95. I had no boot disk and
the CD-ROM (or the Windows installation CD itself) had no autoboot. I
called a friend if he could create an MS-DOS boot disk for me. But "he
was too busy". So I went to a small local computer store and asked the
guy to create one. He asked for the equivalent of $5 today! SOAB! But I
needed Windows 95 back, so I paid. Never went to that shop again.

Cut the storeowner some slack, he has to make a living.

I never used windows myself until XP. I went right from DOS to OS/2, and
compared to OS/2, all versions of windows were ***@p.

[J. Clarke]

It wasn't all Microsoft. IBM shot themselves in the foot in the '80s when they
tried to reign in control of the clone market by coming out with a proprietary
bus. (Was that EISA, or something else? I'm getting a memory error on the
correct acronym.)

No; ISA was the original bus of the AT, and EISA was the alternative to the
proprietary bus used by IBM in the PS/2. Which didn't have an acronym, it
was just called the Micro Channel bus.

Most of us called it "MCA". IBM didn't officially because the Music
Corporation of America got snotty about it--I once got a cease and
desist letter from them over posting on either USENET or CompuServe. I
told them that if they wanted to sue me I would save them the trouble
and that they should let me know where to send the two pairs of torn
jeans, 5 stained t-shirts, 8 pairs of of used underwear, and the worn
out sneakers, but that if they wanted the beat-up tomcat they were
going to have to arrange transportation. I continued using "MCA" and
never heard another peep out of them.

John Savard

[Kurt Weiske]

To: Quadibloc
-=> Quadibloc wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

Qu> No; ISA was the original bus of the AT, and EISA was the alternative to
Qu> the proprietary bus used by IBM in the PS/2. Which didn't have an
Qu> acronym, it was just called the Micro Channel bus.

I heard MCA a lot - Micro Channel Architecture.

I worked for a large retail/mail order company back in 1991 as an IT
"Generalist" and the shop was all IBM, from the token ring network to 2
S/38s and 2 AS/400s, PS/2 model 60s for admin users and 80s for power users.
IBM 4019 laser printers. The IBM reps referred to MCA a lot.

Oddly enough, I went to work in local government in 2016. The raised floor
server room was still there and you could see the outlines where the
midrange iron used to be, now filled with racks of intel servers. In the
corner was the last remaining AS/400, and next to it was a PS/2 model 80,
Model M keyboard, IBM ball mouse, 8514 VGA monitor and a 4019 laser printer
- they kept it around with an external tape drive to pull data from AS/400
backups. The kit looked like the same one I had used 25 years earlier.


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