[Elecraft] ELEPRODUCT POLL

[Vic Rosenthal]

Rick Tavan wrote:

> In the opinion of many, the open spec of the IBM PC was a singular event 
> that triggered the demise of IBM's domination of the computer industry. 
> Of course, many thought that was a good thing.

In my opinion the open spec is what made the IBM PC the industry 
standard.  And I said 'the IBM PC', not IBM!  But anyway, IBM shot 
themselves in the foot in so many ways that it is amazing that they are 
still such a big player in the microcomputer industry.  I think Elecraft 
understands their market better than IBM did.

> Also, IBM's choice of Microsoft as the O/S supplier and Intel as the CPU 
> supplier for their PC was the dual event that marked the ascension of 
> those two vendors to replace IBM in domination of the computer industry. 
> And many think that was a bad thing.

Technically speaking, the 8088 and especially MSDOS (IBM called it PCDOS 
but it started out as Seattle Computer 86-DOS) were significantly behind 
the state of the art.  Who knows where we would be now if the original 
PC had come with a multi-tasking OS (like the one on my Sinclair QL in 
1981) and a 680xx processor with a flat address space?

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco