[Milsurplus] IBM PC

[Ray Fantini]

All evolutionary process have steps, the modern desktop PC did not
evolve from one thing but is a conglomeration of many things, including
the old Alter, Hellos systems, the many signal board CPU kits, anyone
remember the Kim? And keyboard based systems like the Apple and Pet with
the 6502 and the TRS-80 and others built around the Intel chip, I had a
8080 based S-100 system that ran CPM and would love to know where it is
today. And I do not discount all the relevance of the other systems but
still stand by my statement that the IBM fifty one hundred series, the
PC and later XT is the turning point and the start of the modern desktop
era. The IBM was the first to use an ISA backplane, yea I know it's a
copy of the idea that Apple used in their twos but everyone else used it
afterwards. The IBM had DOS, ok so it's a Microsoft reverse engineered
version of CPM, but once again everyone else used it, well except for
Mac people. And IBM had a disk drive, thus the need for DOS where the
TRS-80 and most systems before it used a cassette and the old basic load
and save commands for peripheral management. Myself I have not seen but
was told a PC could be bought without a floppy drive and used with just
the in ROM basic and a cassette deck but have never seen that.
If the ARC-5 is relevant for being the first modern style aviation
radio, and showing the direction of radio evolution at that time, I
stand by my assertion that the IBM PC also showed the way the future
will be. Not to mention another analogy can be drawn by the fact that
with both by the time they were in full production they were already
obsolete.
Of course the next question is was the ARC-5 really that significant in
comparison with radios like the airborne VHF SCR 511 sets or ARC-3
produced a little later? Or just a technological blind alley that
finally ended with the little gray ARC radios. 
Ray Fantini KA3EKH