IBM actually did attempt to reclaim the market they had pioneered with the initial PC with the introduction of the PS/2 line in the latter part of the 80s. The higher end, more expensive models of the PS/2 line used a newly designed, proprietary "micro-channel" bus architecture in place of the Industry standard architecture (ISA) bus that was introduced with PC and PC/XT line. Anyone wanting to make peripherals that interfaced to the system via micro-channel would have to pay a royalty to IBM. In response, the so-called "Gang of Nine" (Compaq, HP, et. al.) got together and created the EISA bus standard.
Classic. Cool story thanks. Reminds me of what Sony did with Betamax standard (it's ours and you have to pay us for them). In that case a gang of 4ish audio video companies decided come together to make the VHS standard. Every time a company does a power play like this, something really good comes from the competition and the power play fails :D. I guess let that be a lesson to every executive out there.
Bill Gates bought DOS for $50,000 then sold it for millions to IBM. But he didn't exactly sell it he sold a license to use his company's software and the IBM bigwig said "that's fine, the real money is in the computer hardware".
Ya, I remember that, clones...and also don't forget upgrades! Going from DOS 3.3 to 5.0 was a huge step up. How many copies of DOS 5.0 do you think he sold heh. Then he had upgrades(which today would be free) that he sold for even current versions of DOS. He got rich because he had the operating system most people bought. Back then, it was among the best operating systems money could buy!
MS made real money on their applications & languages, weak competition laws allowed them to compete and gradually destroy other software companies. Their application developers always had an inside track on OS improvements, giving them a time to market advantage.
Well it used to be. Funny thing is that they made a machine based on off the shelf parts that every company could get their hands on. They made the most successful platform in history, and also their own downfall at the same time.
Let's not forget a big reason why IBM lost a lot of money is their development of OS/2 and the sabotage by Microsoft with Windows as well. If OS/2 had beaten Windows things would be drastically different.
windows IS os/2. after microsoft/ibm os/2 2.1-ish they kinda got a fight, mickeysoft renamed their version 'windows nt 3.5' (the kernel and drivers still say 'os/2 system binary' or something in the file), after windows ME they gave up on the 'glorified dos shell' and only continued sales of the renamed os/2 "nt" stuff as "xp, 2000" and later versions. as os/2 could run dos and wintendo binaries anyway, from a 'user standpoint' there wasn't much difference between the 'glorified dos shell' line that came from windows 1.0 and the 'windows and dos compatible' os/2 that later became nt and afterthe ME disaster on the 'glorified dos shell' line, is the only line left. so yeah. that stuff in the shops today, IS 'the microsoft branch' of os/2. wether they still sell it as os/2 or not doesn't make much of a difference. the "os/2" references even were still in the binaries on nt4
so technically... os/2 DID beat 'windows' if with windows you mean microsofts glorified dos shell (windows 1.0 2.0 3.0 3.1 3.11 win32s 95 98 me - exit) os/2 went like: os2 1.0 os2 2.0 MICROSOFT os/2 2.1 lanmanager nt 3 nt 3.5 nt 4 ... xp ... 2000... 2003 server ... 2007 2008 vista bla bla and onwards. the ibm branch of os/2 somewhat ended at os/2 warp and then a few releases further on, after the split at version 2 as both could run dos and windows binaries anyway, people that didn't look at the binaries never noticed (other than the 'nt' versions magically starting with 3 with no '1' and '2' as those were os/2 ;)
The engineer inside me screamed every time that block diagram showed up; it's from a *much* later architecture, and one that didn't appear until well after IBM had completely lost control of the PC market -- AGP was introduced in 1997.
Yeah I noticed something was odd when I noticed "USB" being on one of the diagrams, but I don't think it really matters. At least it serves its purpose somewhat as a visual illustration for laymen.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one that shook slightly. To be fair though insert whatever you want in the blocks, the diagram holds for the 80s and for today :)
oh. so the 8089 would have been the 'southbridge' which i kinda noticed flying by in the video. lolololol. just that that part of the intel iAPx86 line wasn't used in the ibm. lol. (back when pcs were still proper computers... nowadays it's all just garbage ;)
@@craigtheduck yep. that's what i said. :P it's part of the chipset, and part of the reference design implementation. but not in the ibm pc. for some reason intel's weird 8087 made it into there tho. at least as a slot for it even if it was usually empty :P (80 bits of always the almost correct but still wrong answer floating point unit' :P LOL. like. ibm. you sell to banks. none of your customers are interested in 'nearly the right answer to a computation' :P they want the -right- answer. even if it takes a bit longer. :P (whomever invented floating point should be hanged :P LOL.
Thank you for doing IBM, my late father worked for IBM for over 36 year's, you did miss out they started off making clocking in machines for factorys, later typewriters and not invented but got it to work the ball for typewriters, now mainly they concern themselves with internet security and even Interpol security.
You have an amazing knack for wording this huge tangled nugget of computer history in a concise and entertaining way. After all, computers made learning fun and are equally fun to learn about.
If only Commodore weren't colossally bad at business and maybe there'd be a third pillar in the form of the Amiga to go along with Windows/Linux PC's and Macbooks...If only :(
yep, i would love to use Bioshock/Elisabeth's multi-verse ability to see a dystopia with Commodore Amiga's instead of IBM PC's clones everywhere ;) also no more Windows, still the good ol' Workbench ! ;)
Wang was headquartered in my home city. In the mid eighties most companies in this area used Wang computers but being a proprietary machine, they were done by the 90s. There are still schools and other buildings all over New England with Wang in the name.
@11:00 I believe that IBM charged people $50 for DOS and $240 for CP/M, so its no a surprise why it lost. After watching about a video about GRiD Computers founders, IBM even went to GRiD to see their operating system they were building. But the deal never happened with GRiD, if it did, who knows we probably would have cloud storage years back, as it was part of a functionality for GRiD OS.
we did have 'cloud storage' years back. novell netware was around quite early in the game. as were things like 'bayan vines' or something like that. as for $50 for dos and $240 for cp/m well... as dos is just a blatant copy of cp/m in pretty much all aspects... i somehow guess cp/m was betting on simply letting them sell and then sueing them later. lol. they tried that. it didn't quite work out tho.
"pumkin eaters aimt People, programs were journals of person people, king conveyor belt commercials run Outlook Off" I read a chinese "ingrish" manual last week that looked eerily like this...did you write it?!
The real irony behind DOS, is MS discontinued a far more capable OS in favor of it: their System V distro, Xenix. System V got multitasking down long before MS did, and even long before the Amiga came into play, so much for that groundbreaking tech in its favor, which the Amiga almost had a System V distro of its own.
great video Kim :) however, you forgot to mention that these days apple macs are also basically PC architecture since they switched to Intel x86 around 2006
ZLau13 true, but you can install windows onto them x86 Mac's and I have heard that it can run really well so they can make great PCs lol so there can't be too much difference between the architecture I think..
The BIOS chip and lack of freedom in which components work with OS X is the only difference lol nothing else as far as hardware goes, made in the same Chinese factory as Dell computers..
So true. Apple users get so triggered when you point out this obvious fact. If the architecture was even slightly different, windows would crash and not work on a mac. The memory map is the same, the architecture of the CPU is the same, and even the I/O bus and connectors are the same. Even if they change the connectors to fleece their customers, the protocols on those connectors are the same. Apple= a dell with a 2500$ white plastic/metal case covering it and a deficient bios with most of the support of a normal x86, but no legacy support. "You know, just in case you were interested in loading anything you bought 10-15 years ago...forget it loser you bought our product." Steve jobs Okay! he didn't say that per say, but cmon!
IBM had used Microsoft PC-DOS, because it was written to support CP/M API calls and there was a converter program to convert CP/M programs to DOS programs. CP/M required the user to be a programmer and patch CP/M programs for different printer support and other things. Apple had a Z80 Card for their Apple II series that ran CP/M, Commodore had the 128 with a Z80 coprocessor to run CP/M disks on a 1571 drive. Having PC-DOS and the CP/M converter program was like having your cake and eat it too.
Mum Blic I would almost say this is the rule rather than the exception. Once a company is "populated" it is dead. Schopenhauer's parables paints a clear picture of this problem. There is a cathedral not viewable from any side...why?
lets not forget Apple used the IBM RISC processor all the way up to the G4! at which point you could argue Apple gave up the only remaining unique pc architecture.
Commodore was for home market, Apple for educational market, IBM for business market...they were not actual competitors back then. IBM knew where the real money would come from, yes ,the big companies...so the Big Blue won.
In the UK (I think Australia also) Acorn with the BBC line of micros followed by the Archimedes line (which BTW was the 1st use of the ARM processor now commonly used everywhere) had the educational market until around 93/94 when it started to change.
In the mid 80s I had an IBM 5150 and an Apple III (expanded to 512K). Both were hand-me-downs but as they had cost my dad a combined $10,000 or so I didn't complain. When my dad again upgraded I got his IBM 5161 (XT Turbo). If I still had them I could start a museum.
I recently found your channel and my GOD! I love it! "KimJustice: A Compendium of Sheer Brilliance." Never dull, such a grand scope of topics, and my only complaint? :) As Sega fans... Zillion. We must discuss this game.... Thank you for your hardwork! Sincerely, a retro game programmer and game-o-phile.
my dad worked for DEC and the implosion inspired him to get a safe and stable job working for the united states government, where he still works to this day. The credit union established for DEC employees is still around as a bank, and they're phenomenal, as a bank.
I think the state of gaming on IBM/clones is another point where your tortoise and the hare analogy works too. PCs were office machines first, and fun was an afterthought, so you'd have systems like the Amiga with lots AMAZING games, while the PC had ugly, blippy, sparse offerings. But once the IBM clones caught up, there was no turning back.
Andrew Vrba I did some research on this. CGA came out by IBM at the 1981 launch, and then in October of 1994 IBM launched EGA, finally in April 1987 IBM launched VGA, in 1988 Super VGA standard was created from the clones. The year 1987 was when sound cards first launched on the PC with Adlib support as well as Roland MT-32. The first VGA game with more than 16 colors was ported over from the Amiga to the PC in December, 1987 and it had 32-colors on screen at one time, it's called "Rockford: The arcade game", which actually shipped on the PC first and then the Amiga platform a couple months later. The artwork was done on an Amiga with 32-colors on screen at once. Deluxe Paint was updated in very early 1988 with 256 color mode of VGA/MCGA. The first game to use almost all 256 colors was 688 Attack Sub by Electronic Arts in 1989 and the first game that used VGA 256 colors all the way through the game was Mean Streets by Access Software in 1989. Intel's 486 came out in 1989 as did the Sound Blaster which came with a joystick port and became the PC standard. VESA software standard set SVGA as a standard to be able to be programmed against. :) By 1991 Sound Blaster Pro came out equaling the Amiga sound hardware, by 1992, the PC would surpass the sound hardware with the Sound Blaster 16 and Gravis Ultrasound. The IBM clones is where everything changed and that was because IBM created the open architecture like this video stated.
I only remember Digital Equipment Corporation because my mom worked for them. At one time, the only folks who employed more people than DEC in Massachusetts was the state government.
Very good video "essay". As one other comment said, might be worth mentioning the OS2 / MS-DOS "war" - as part of a video about Operating Systems or something, if there isn't enough to make a video in its own right. Thanks for your work!
3:13 Wait, yes I have! The keyboard that came with the first computer I ever owned (that wasn't rented from dad's work) was made by them. I got that computer for christmas in 1996.
Nice vid. I've been reading through cgwmuseum magazine archive recently which is an excellent source of information from this era. There was quite a gaming scene on PC even when it was a dry business computer in the mid '80s. It doesn't get much coverage in the retro gaming community.
Kildall taking Gates's place wouldn't just have been better for him, but for everyone else, since he was far from the licence scheming monopolist that Gates always was. On the other hand, the same lack of predatory 'business' qualities would have meant that he would've been replaced by some cannibal who had those qualities sooner or later.
Actually DEC did make micro computers for the business and professional market such as the Rainbow 100. The company was very influential well into the 1990s with it's line of servers and work stations until it's acquisition by Compaq in 1998 who had no idea what to do with the IP they gained control of.
16:20 ... only just realised, on second viewing, that there is a live version of 'Scorched Earth' by Van der Graaf Generator playing in the background. Bloody brilliant group.
DEC were part of the consortium behind the Alpha processor, a 64-bit chip, in the 1990's but that folded as all software would have to be recompiled for Alpha systems.
+Kim Justice your vids are just bloody awesome! There's always an engrossing subplot or subtext too. I think you should do one on Gary Kildall. I'm also astonished that the small Victorian country town Wangaratta (200km north of me here in Melbourne) somehow made it onto an IBM advertisement. It's like say Bognor Regis or Kings Lynn getting mentioned.
Atleast they gave us the Model F keyboard! Yeah there are also beamspring, but the Model F is a good size keyboard that is still the best keyboard I’ve ever used! Great Video!
Another solid, A1 video -- subscribed! I thought I new everything about the PC, but the way you brought it made me loved it till the end. Can't wait to see what you'll work on next!
I never owned an IBM. We had a TI and later an Apple II at home. At school, we had Apples II and the kids who got to use the 2 GS models were considered the really lucky kids. However when the school earned a PC (an actual IBM) from a gold receipt campaign, that was the pinnacle, to earn time to play on the PC. While I never actually owned a IBM proper as our later home machines were HP, Compaq or Dell, growing up in the 1980s, I was quite aware of the cultural impact of the PC/Apple Wars. Which actually for many years, didn't automatically mean the Mac (although my Grandparents had one, many hours of Tetris there) as the II models were still strong. I for years considered a Mac for the the purpose of art as most computer art courses were taught on them, but I never took that medium up so stuck with PC and am perfectly content.
In 1974 . . . IBM already had the operating system that would eventually become Microsoft DOS . . . I know because I was working for a company that used mainframe technology via modem in 1973 . . . in Boston Massachusetts ! ! !
The bigger irony is that they love their digital masters and defend them with great vigor. "No, it is right that Lord Jobs should tell me how to listen to music from beyond the grave. It is right that I should not have my own copy of things...that would be dangerous!"
Apple thought that they had a lock on micro computers because they were aiming at education. BIG MISTAKE! Education didn't have the money! Business did. I remember seeing one of the original Macintosh. 1 floppy drive and incredibly small screen. I was NOT impressed.
I remember reading many years ago that the PC 5150 motherboard architecture was actually based on an Intel reference design but a google search didn't turn up any information about this.
I really wish people would stop saying the "1984" Apple commercial is one of the "greatest" commercials ever... It isn't. Like everything else Apple has ever done, all Apple did was take someone else's idea, slap a colored fruit on it, and then call it "perfection". *yawn*....
looneyburgmusic I own a Mac for Design purposes and an iPhone 5S cos I'm a sucker. There really is a lot to like about their products but I agree with you and I despise the pretension that some people have towards owning them and idolising Jobs. Fear not tho cos from what little I know, I reckon post Jobs they're beginning to shoot themselves in the foot.
S B When the Mac first came out it definitely was a decent computer for doing things like desktop publishing, and later audio/video editing, (and it may have even been the best choice), but those days are *long* past. There is nothing any Apple can do today that a Windows based PC can not for 1/3 the price. And that is what really gets under my skin. I'm a composer, and whenever someone hears that they always ask what kind of Mac I use to record with, and then give me a strange look when they find out I don't... I use a pair of Asus i7 laptops running Windows 10 - One is my DAW, the second is slaved as a vst/sample host. This setup does exactly what I need, when I need, and I was able to buy both for less than the price of one high-end Apple. But because my computers do not have a fruit on the lid I'm an "amauter" according to some people... I don't think so.
+S B When the Xerox first came out it definitely was a decent computer for doing things like desktop publishing, and later Amiga/Atari for audio/video editing, (and it may have even been the best choice), but those days are long past. There is nothing any Xerox/Amiga/Apple can do today that a Windows based PC can not for 1/3 the price. I fixed a few facts where you gave apple credit for _anything_ original. All they did was put a colored fruit on a Xerox computer and call it "perfection." Incidentally, they totally screwed up the 68000 bus architecture and had to run the clock way down. So the Lisa was really slow and terrible for desktop publishing!! Anyway, for real video editing, people didn't use Apples. They used video editing machines all the way up until the late 2000's. They were hideously expensive, but very cool machines...and they ran windows btw. Before that, they used Amiga computers with video mixing capabilities. Almost every studio had their own Amiga for doing effects. Star Trek TNG for example had an Amiga 2500 doing the effects.
technically apple wasn't even relevant during the entire pre-2000s period when they brought unix workstations to corner shops. the apple 1 sold a mere 150-or-so units, wasn't the first computer 'with a keyboard and screen' and wasn't the first 6502 development board (really, that's all it is, a competitor to the kim-1 sym-1 and aim-65 development boards). the apple II was outsold by far by both atari and commodore, not to mention a whole lot of z80 and other based systems out there. and yet it's always 'apple apple apple' who fucking cares about crackpot jobs. other than the apple II line 'being able to keep it's pant's up commercially' the whole company wasn't a big success, and in fact, they still aren't. i'd say that out of all of the things apple computer inc. ever did the only thing that stands up as 'unique' today is that they managed to wipe sun and sgi out of the unix workstation market by not selling them through dealers where you have to make appointments but in retail shops. but that came far far far later with os-x and the G3s
“Not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, ‘Those are the nazgul. Once they were human, now they are IBM’s lawyers.'”
Great video as always. By the way, the other day I watched your Legends of Wrestling video and loved your quick coverage of the rise and fall of Acclaim. Do you think you would ever do a video on the rise, fall, and re-rise of Activision? Even though the company isn't very well-loved by gamers anymore, it's still pretty amazing to think that a premier publisher of the Atari 2600 era is now still a premier publisher today, albeit after going through a few rock-bottom years inbetween.
great video as always, though I am not sure about that guitar comparison. To me, the Amiga is the Stratocaster (for versatility, price and being ahead in innovation), while the PC at least in the 80s to me felt like an overpriced Danelectro or Silvertone winning the market :)
I worked as a system builder in the early 2000's and regularly got to test IBM, fugitsu, HP, Dell all of the key players basically. IBM computers (both desktop and laptops) would always do better in performance benchmark tests than the others. The IBM thinkpad was phenomenal compared to a similar spec Toshiba or Compaq. It's a shame really because IBM built such great machines but I guess at the time cost was more important for buyers, especially corporate clients who would buy machines in the 100's. The build quality of IBM PC's was far superior than all of their clones, their computers WERE better than the clones from the mid 90's onwards. The new war today in consumer computing is PC's vs Android and ultimately Android will win. Android isn't just your phone, it's your tablet, your firestick, your chromecast, your TV, etc. Some may say what about iphones but I honestly think that Iphones are a seperate marketplace now. In terms of the PC it will definitely be extinct by 2020 (at least for consumers) so lets celebrate a computer that is in essence nearly 30 years old. Not bad going when you look at it like that.
My first pc was a ibm ps/2 let's see 386 50egs of hard drive space we decked it out with a cdrom a svga card and I want to say we put 2 megs of ram in that bad boy adlib sound blaster (forget what kind) and a fancy zip drive thing that went on to the next pc ,. Sorry made me remember my first pc lol
Hey Kim hope all is well with you. First of all, I must say that I totally enjoy your videos, . I just wanted to make a constructive criticism, I found that when I played the audio through a good set of speakers, as I enjoy capturing the full dynamics of your narrative. I found myself being distracted by the bedding tracks, not because of the genre of music, but because of the tempo, words and energy. Most of the music simply clashes with your voice and is not in the right balance of your outstanding and high caliber of information that you deliver so well. Best regards...!!! If I could suggest to you without me coming across as a know it all. Maybe if you tried lowering the music with a fader in between talking, or removing heavy sounding drums with an E.Q. and lower the vocal parts of tracks when you talk, I think you’ll agree it will work much better and will have the desired and professional effect that you deserve.
Great video, thanks. Have you researched the UK computer companies that fought (lost) against IBM and the clones. My dad worked for CPU Computers / LSI Computers from Woking, Surrey who launched great computers like the LSI Octopus with 8088 and Z80 running 8 and 16-bit software under Concurrent CP/M. Wonderful machines. Maybe you should interview him?
aaah the days of 386 and 486 PC's .. 3.5 inch disk drives, 40MB hard disks !!! 16MB of memoryl 640KB base memory (which DOS ran in) and then the rest of the memory > 1MB or so (I can't even remember) ran in either as Extended Memory or Expanded Memory), Windows 3.1 a non pre-emptive OS which crashed if any of the apps it was running also crashed, then there were 3DFx cards in addition to a graphics card ! When Windows NT came it was a god send !
I think I had a Voodoo 3Dfx .. which type of card would only work with the very first version of Resident Evil on the PC which the game used for 3D acceleration ? answers on a postcard..
Great video, but from what i heard, people didn't stick with PC DOS because it was the default. I heard that people had a choice of both PC DOS and CPM with CPM being sold for something like 3 times the price of PC DOS, so Gary Kildall basically got screwed. I cant remember exactly where i read/heard this from. It may have been on an Episode of Computer Chronicles after Gary passed away.
The only great loss here is that the Amiga couldn't last and continue to push the boundaries, but that had more to do with mismanaging, it seems. I'm glad for PCs. IBM set the stage for a more open market and that has only benefited the world.
yes... I did know about digital, they made The apha processors That later was bought by AMD and integrited in The a64 processor later called The x64.... That is what we use today
I liked the multiple mentions of Compaq but I thought you were a tad remiss in not mentioning the Tandy 1000 and its role in getting IBM-compatible PCs into homes? Yeah sure, there were also Turbo XTs being sold to home users, but the Tandy 1000 had the size and support of the Radio Shack dealer network behind it.
As a long time Atari user, I could not believe backward and overpriced technology like the IBM PC could ever take over. In the late 80's the ST was half the price and double the performance... and had non of the archaic prompt hassle, enhanced/expanded memory, video mode selection, IRQ settings just to run a game with a PC beeper. How wrong I was.. It's not a factor 2, 3, or even 4 difference in bang for buck. It's all about market traction. This is visible everywhere in the history of technology.
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IBM actually did attempt to reclaim the market they had pioneered with the initial PC with the introduction of the PS/2 line in the latter part of the 80s. The higher end, more expensive models of the PS/2 line used a newly designed, proprietary "micro-channel" bus architecture in place of the Industry standard architecture (ISA) bus that was introduced with PC and PC/XT line. Anyone wanting to make peripherals that interfaced to the system via micro-channel would have to pay a royalty to IBM. In response, the so-called "Gang of Nine" (Compaq, HP, et. al.) got together and created the EISA bus standard.
Classic. Cool story thanks. Reminds me of what Sony did with Betamax standard (it's ours and you have to pay us for them). In that case a gang of 4ish audio video companies decided come together to make the VHS standard. Every time a company does a power play like this, something really good comes from the competition and the power play fails :D. I guess let that be a lesson to every executive out there.
Bill Gates bought DOS for $50,000 then sold it for millions to IBM. But he didn't exactly sell it he sold a license to use his company's software and the IBM bigwig said "that's fine, the real money is in the computer hardware".
+trip2themoon Actually they sold it to IBM for $75000 or so. MS made its money with the clones.
Ya, I remember that, clones...and also don't forget upgrades! Going from DOS 3.3 to 5.0 was a huge step up. How many copies of DOS 5.0 do you think he sold heh. Then he had upgrades(which today would be free) that he sold for even current versions of DOS. He got rich because he had the operating system most people bought. Back then, it was among the best operating systems money could buy!
MS made real money on their applications & languages, weak competition laws allowed them to compete and gradually destroy other software companies.
Their application developers always had an inside track on OS improvements, giving them a time to market advantage.
Well it used to be. Funny thing is that they made a machine based on off the shelf parts that every company could get their hands on. They made the most successful platform in history, and also their own downfall at the same time.
Let's not forget a big reason why IBM lost a lot of money is their development of OS/2 and the sabotage by Microsoft with Windows as well. If OS/2 had beaten Windows things would be drastically different.
Agree! Os/2 vs Windows is the big missing piece in this story.
windows IS os/2. after microsoft/ibm os/2 2.1-ish they kinda got a fight, mickeysoft renamed their version 'windows nt 3.5' (the kernel and drivers still say 'os/2 system binary' or something in the file), after windows ME they gave up on the 'glorified dos shell' and only continued sales of the renamed os/2 "nt" stuff as "xp, 2000" and later versions. as os/2 could run dos and wintendo binaries anyway, from a 'user standpoint' there wasn't much difference between the 'glorified dos shell' line that came from windows 1.0 and the 'windows and dos compatible' os/2 that later became nt and afterthe ME disaster on the 'glorified dos shell' line, is the only line left. so yeah. that stuff in the shops today, IS 'the microsoft branch' of os/2. wether they still sell it as os/2 or not doesn't make much of a difference. the "os/2" references even were still in the binaries on nt4
so technically... os/2 DID beat 'windows' if with windows you mean microsofts glorified dos shell (windows 1.0 2.0 3.0 3.1 3.11 win32s 95 98 me - exit)
os/2 went like:
os2 1.0 os2 2.0 MICROSOFT os/2 2.1 lanmanager nt 3 nt 3.5 nt 4 ... xp ... 2000... 2003 server ... 2007 2008 vista bla bla and onwards.
the ibm branch of os/2 somewhat ended at os/2 warp and then a few releases further on, after the split at version 2
as both could run dos and windows binaries anyway, people that didn't look at the binaries never noticed (other than the 'nt' versions magically starting with 3 with no '1' and '2' as those were os/2 ;)
Don't forget about DR's GEM. It was much better than Windows at the time.
The engineer inside me screamed every time that block diagram showed up; it's from a *much* later architecture, and one that didn't appear until well after IBM had completely lost control of the PC market -- AGP was introduced in 1997.
Yeah I noticed something was odd when I noticed "USB" being on one of the diagrams, but I don't think it really matters. At least it serves its purpose somewhat as a visual illustration for laymen.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one that shook slightly. To be fair though insert whatever you want in the blocks, the diagram holds for the 80s and for today :)
oh. so the 8089 would have been the 'southbridge' which i kinda noticed flying by in the video. lolololol. just that that part of the intel iAPx86 line wasn't used in the ibm. lol. (back when pcs were still proper computers... nowadays it's all just garbage ;)
@@CB3ROB-CyberBunker The IBM PC actually didn't make use of the 8089...
@@craigtheduck yep. that's what i said. :P it's part of the chipset, and part of the reference design implementation. but not in the ibm pc. for some reason intel's weird 8087 made it into there tho. at least as a slot for it even if it was usually empty :P (80 bits of always the almost correct but still wrong answer floating point unit' :P LOL. like. ibm. you sell to banks. none of your customers are interested in 'nearly the right answer to a computation' :P they want the -right- answer. even if it takes a bit longer. :P (whomever invented floating point should be hanged :P LOL.
Thank you for doing IBM, my late father worked for IBM for over 36 year's, you did miss out they started off making clocking in machines for factorys, later typewriters and not invented but got it to work the ball for typewriters, now mainly they concern themselves with internet security and even Interpol security.
You have an amazing knack for wording this huge tangled nugget of computer history in a concise and entertaining way. After all, computers made learning fun and are equally fun to learn about.
These videos you make are top notch. Quality techno-journalism for sure.
It's missing IBM's sticking with 286 during OS/2 development which caused PC cloners to release 386 based PC before IBM.
If only Commodore weren't colossally bad at business and maybe there'd be a third pillar in the form of the Amiga to go along with Windows/Linux PC's and Macbooks...If only :(
madcapoperator In another dimension our mobile phones say Commodore instead of Apple!
Didn't a company buy the rights to make smartphones with Commodore branding a few years ago? Did anything come out of that?
yep, i would love to use Bioshock/Elisabeth's multi-verse ability to see a dystopia with Commodore Amiga's instead of IBM PC's clones everywhere ;) also no more Windows, still the good ol' Workbench ! ;)
JoPe - TuYaTroJoueY I had Workbench and multitasking way before I had Windows..
sure, me too ! on my fellow Amiga 500 ! then on my 500+, and then again on my 1200 ! and now, these days, on my FPGA Myst :p
Wang was headquartered in my home city. In the mid eighties most companies in this area used Wang computers but being a proprietary machine, they were done by the 90s. There are still schools and other buildings all over New England with Wang in the name.
@11:00 I believe that IBM charged people $50 for DOS and $240 for CP/M, so its no a surprise why it lost. After watching about a video about GRiD Computers founders, IBM even went to GRiD to see their operating system they were building. But the deal never happened with GRiD, if it did, who knows we probably would have cloud storage years back, as it was part of a functionality for GRiD OS.
$50? AFAIK the IBM PC-DOS 1.0 was included with the IBM 5150 for the $3000 price, i.e you could not buy one without it.
we did have 'cloud storage' years back. novell netware was around quite early in the game. as were things like 'bayan vines' or something like that. as for $50 for dos and $240 for cp/m well... as dos is just a blatant copy of cp/m in pretty much all aspects... i somehow guess cp/m was betting on simply letting them sell and then sueing them later. lol. they tried that. it didn't quite work out tho.
And the irony is, that Apple became what they tried to smash in the commercial xD
pumkin eaters aimt People, programs were journals of person people, king conveyor belt commercials run Outlook Off
Ha! So true...
They are the cloud controlling all of their users access rights, media, and data.
"pumkin eaters aimt People, programs were journals of person people, king conveyor belt commercials run Outlook Off"
I read a chinese "ingrish" manual last week that looked eerily like this...did you write it?!
Vigorously churning king conveyor belt Colorado running people population grindy grind Apple.
The real irony behind DOS, is MS discontinued a far more capable OS in favor of it: their System V distro, Xenix. System V got multitasking down long before MS did, and even long before the Amiga came into play, so much for that groundbreaking tech in its favor, which the Amiga almost had a System V distro of its own.
great video Kim :) however, you forgot to mention that these days apple macs are also basically PC architecture since they switched to Intel x86 around 2006
Jason Hill Macs aren't really IBM PC compatibles because they do not have legacy BIOS support afaik.
ZLau13 true, but you can install windows onto them x86 Mac's and I have heard that it can run really well so they can make great PCs lol so there can't be too much difference between the architecture I think..
The BIOS chip and lack of freedom in which components work with OS X is the only difference lol nothing else as far as hardware goes, made in the same Chinese factory as Dell computers..
So true. Apple users get so triggered when you point out this obvious fact. If the architecture was even slightly different, windows would crash and not work on a mac. The memory map is the same, the architecture of the CPU is the same, and even the I/O bus and connectors are the same. Even if they change the connectors to fleece their customers, the protocols on those connectors are the same. Apple= a dell with a 2500$ white plastic/metal case covering it and a deficient bios with most of the support of a normal x86, but no legacy support.
"You know, just in case you were interested in loading anything you bought 10-15 years ago...forget it loser you bought our product."
Steve jobs
Okay! he didn't say that per say, but cmon!
But because Apple control their software stack, they can jump CPU just like past UNIX using companies could
IBM had used Microsoft PC-DOS, because it was written to support CP/M API calls and there was a converter program to convert CP/M programs to DOS programs. CP/M required the user to be a programmer and patch CP/M programs for different printer support and other things. Apple had a Z80 Card for their Apple II series that ran CP/M, Commodore had the 128 with a Z80 coprocessor to run CP/M disks on a 1571 drive. Having PC-DOS and the CP/M converter program was like having your cake and eat it too.
Very interesting stuff, as per usual!
Its shocking to think a small team and a back-up decision changed the face of computers forever.
It's was not first time this happened and it will not be the last time also
Mum Blic I would almost say this is the rule rather than the exception. Once a company is "populated" it is dead.
Schopenhauer's parables paints a clear picture of this problem. There is a cathedral not viewable from any side...why?
lets not forget Apple used the IBM RISC processor all the way up to the G4! at which point you could argue Apple gave up the only remaining unique pc architecture.
Hmmmm, the Apple M1 range says they didn't give a lot up.
@@RobBCactive comment was 5 years ago.....
But yeah. Took Apple ten years under Cooke to move forward. Let's see if they can get ahead again.
Commodore was for home market, Apple for educational market, IBM for business market...they were not actual competitors back then. IBM knew where the real money would come from, yes ,the big companies...so the Big Blue won.
In the UK (I think Australia also) Acorn with the BBC line of micros followed by the Archimedes line (which BTW was the 1st use of the ARM processor now commonly used everywhere) had the educational market until around 93/94 when it started to change.
@Cameron McCourtney Did you have a mix of BBC's and Archimedes?
Kim Justice AT LONG LAST!!!! I have been so looking forward to this next episode!!!! Thank you so much!!! I knew you would not let us down!!!!
In the mid 80s I had an IBM 5150 and an Apple III (expanded to 512K). Both were hand-me-downs but as they had cost my dad a combined $10,000 or so I didn't complain. When my dad again upgraded I got his IBM 5161 (XT Turbo). If I still had them I could start a museum.
I recently found your channel and my GOD! I love it! "KimJustice: A Compendium of Sheer Brilliance." Never dull, such a grand scope of topics, and my only complaint? :) As Sega fans... Zillion. We must discuss this game.... Thank you for your hardwork! Sincerely, a retro game programmer and game-o-phile.
my dad worked for DEC and the implosion inspired him to get a safe and stable job working for the united states government, where he still works to this day. The credit union established for DEC employees is still around as a bank, and they're phenomenal, as a bank.
I think the state of gaming on IBM/clones is another point where your tortoise and the hare analogy works too. PCs were office machines first, and fun was an afterthought, so you'd have systems like the Amiga with lots AMAZING games, while the PC had ugly, blippy, sparse offerings. But once the IBM clones caught up, there was no turning back.
Andrew Vrba I did some research on this. CGA came out by IBM at the 1981 launch, and then in October of 1994 IBM launched EGA, finally in April 1987 IBM launched VGA, in 1988 Super VGA standard was created from the clones. The year 1987 was when sound cards first launched on the PC with Adlib support as well as Roland MT-32.
The first VGA game with more than 16 colors was ported over from the Amiga to the PC in December, 1987 and it had 32-colors on screen at one time, it's called "Rockford: The arcade game", which actually shipped on the PC first and then the Amiga platform a couple months later. The artwork was done on an Amiga with 32-colors on screen at once.
Deluxe Paint was updated in very early 1988 with 256 color mode of VGA/MCGA. The first game to use almost all 256 colors was 688 Attack Sub by Electronic Arts in 1989 and the first game that used VGA 256 colors all the way through the game was Mean Streets by Access Software in 1989.
Intel's 486 came out in 1989 as did the Sound Blaster which came with a joystick port and became the PC standard. VESA software standard set SVGA as a standard to be able to be programmed against. :)
By 1991 Sound Blaster Pro came out equaling the Amiga sound hardware, by 1992, the PC would surpass the sound hardware with the Sound Blaster 16 and Gravis Ultrasound.
The IBM clones is where everything changed and that was because IBM created the open architecture like this video stated.
What a pleasant surprise to hear We're all Clones in the background :) Great video as usual.
I only remember Digital Equipment Corporation because my mom worked for them. At one time, the only folks who employed more people than DEC in Massachusetts was the state government.
The Alice Cooper track was perfect. Another FANTASTIC video mate. Just wish I wasn't currently a poor tramp and could support your output.
And here I was thinking there was no way anyone else would recognize an old Alice Cooper song from an Obscure album :)
Never mind Alice Cooper, there's a Van Der Graaf Generator song in there too!
Does anybody know the song starting at 7:45
Your videos are my favorite part of Monday.
Very good video "essay". As one other comment said, might be worth mentioning the OS2 / MS-DOS "war" - as part of a video about Operating Systems or something, if there isn't enough to make a video in its own right. Thanks for your work!
Great video! I never really understood this bit of history before. It all makes sense now
Another great production...particularly loved the American Psycho audio references!
3:13 Wait, yes I have! The keyboard that came with the first computer I ever owned (that wasn't rented from dad's work) was made by them. I got that computer for christmas in 1996.
I hope your channel will explode soon in terms of subscribers, content is top notch. Thank you
Nice vid. I've been reading through cgwmuseum magazine archive recently which is an excellent source of information from this era. There was quite a gaming scene on PC even when it was a dry business computer in the mid '80s. It doesn't get much coverage in the retro gaming community.
Wonderful video as ever and great to hear Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias playing in the background.
@28:20 Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia. My home town, and home for an IBM plant for many years.
Edward Jones ahhh, so that's why! I was absolutely baffled by that one, shocked and had to rewind in disbelief. Nice one.
Love the Throbbing Gristle song in the background!
Kildall taking Gates's place wouldn't just have been better for him, but for everyone else, since he was far from the licence scheming monopolist that Gates always was.
On the other hand, the same lack of predatory 'business' qualities would have meant that he would've been replaced by some cannibal who had those qualities sooner or later.
Very informative and well researched video! I appreciate your calm and collected way of making these videos.
Actually DEC did make micro computers for the business and professional market such as the Rainbow 100.
The company was very influential well into the 1990s with it's line of servers and work stations until it's acquisition by Compaq in 1998 who had no idea what to do with the IP they gained control of.
Great video, Kim. Really interesting!
16:20 ... only just realised, on second viewing, that there is a live version of 'Scorched Earth' by Van der Graaf Generator playing in the background. Bloody brilliant group.
DEC were part of the consortium behind the Alpha processor, a 64-bit chip, in the 1990's but that folded as all software would have to be recompiled for Alpha systems.
+Kim Justice your vids are just bloody awesome! There's always an engrossing subplot or subtext too. I think you should do one on Gary Kildall.
I'm also astonished that the small Victorian country town Wangaratta (200km north of me here in Melbourne) somehow made it onto an IBM advertisement. It's like say Bognor Regis or Kings Lynn getting mentioned.
Thanks to this decision I built my own computer in the mid nineties and continue to do it today.
Atleast they gave us the Model F keyboard! Yeah there are also beamspring, but the Model F is a good size keyboard that is still the best keyboard I’ve ever used! Great Video!
Whenever I want humour mixed with insight, I watcha Kim Justice video.
Another solid, A1 video -- subscribed! I thought I new everything about the PC, but the way you brought it made me loved it till the end. Can't wait to see what you'll work on next!
I never owned an IBM. We had a TI and later an Apple II at home. At school, we had Apples II and the kids who got to use the 2 GS models were considered the really lucky kids. However when the school earned a PC (an actual IBM) from a gold receipt campaign, that was the pinnacle, to earn time to play on the PC. While I never actually owned a IBM proper as our later home machines were HP, Compaq or Dell, growing up in the 1980s, I was quite aware of the cultural impact of the PC/Apple Wars. Which actually for many years, didn't automatically mean the Mac (although my Grandparents had one, many hours of Tetris there) as the II models were still strong. I for years considered a Mac for the the purpose of art as most computer art courses were taught on them, but I never took that medium up so stuck with PC and am perfectly content.
That was very interesting, thank you, I feel like it is the basis to understand absolutely anything about the last 30 years of computer history.
In 1974 . . . IBM already had the operating system that would eventually become Microsoft DOS . . .
I know because I was working for a company that used mainframe technology via modem in 1973 . . .
in Boston Massachusetts ! ! !
19:41 what is this music ?
Themost important features were a 80 character display for text processing and the business software.
Hooray for the IBM PC and its compatible!
Documentary on Konami Namco electronic arts would put icing on cake
Keep up the good job Kim!
the irony is that apple was and became the biggest "big brother" then anybody else
The bigger irony is that they love their digital masters and defend them with great vigor.
"No, it is right that Lord Jobs should tell me how to listen to music from beyond the grave. It is right that I should not have my own copy of things...that would be dangerous!"
This was very well researched. Great job! Love your videos Kim!
Great video! After reading "Hackers" by Steven Levy (book about how computers started) this was very interesting to watch.
Apple thought that they had a lock on micro computers because they were aiming at education. BIG MISTAKE! Education didn't have the money! Business did. I remember seeing one of the original Macintosh. 1 floppy drive and incredibly small screen. I was NOT impressed.
Thanks for another great retrospect :)
I remember reading many years ago that the PC 5150 motherboard architecture was actually based on an Intel reference design but a google search didn't turn up any information about this.
Excellent video, cheers! Keep these coming, you're really good at these history lessons. :)
2 dislikes? WTF! Top vid... Once again. Cheers Kim
incredible work as always, thank you very much
So great Kim! When are we going to see a Jeff Minter episode?
The Relesse of Doom really helped with their sales too
By the time Doom came out in 1993 the clones had long since taken over the market so it probably didn't help IBM very much.
I really wish people would stop saying the "1984" Apple commercial is one of the "greatest" commercials ever... It isn't. Like everything else Apple has ever done, all Apple did was take someone else's idea, slap a colored fruit on it, and then call it "perfection".
*yawn*....
looneyburgmusic I own a Mac for Design purposes and an iPhone 5S cos I'm a sucker. There really is a lot to like about their products but I agree with you and I despise the pretension that some people have towards owning them and idolising Jobs. Fear not tho cos from what little I know, I reckon post Jobs they're beginning to shoot themselves in the foot.
S B When the Mac first came out it definitely was a decent computer for doing things like desktop publishing, and later audio/video editing, (and it may have even been the best choice), but those days are *long* past. There is nothing any Apple can do today that a Windows based PC can not for 1/3 the price.
And that is what really gets under my skin. I'm a composer, and whenever someone hears that they always ask what kind of Mac I use to record with, and then give me a strange look when they find out I don't... I use a pair of Asus i7 laptops running Windows 10 - One is my DAW, the second is slaved as a vst/sample host. This setup does exactly what I need, when I need, and I was able to buy both for less than the price of one high-end Apple.
But because my computers do not have a fruit on the lid I'm an "amauter" according to some people...
I don't think so.
Think
+S B When the Xerox first came out it definitely was a decent computer for doing things like desktop publishing, and later Amiga/Atari for audio/video editing, (and it may have even been the best choice), but those days are long past. There is nothing any Xerox/Amiga/Apple can do today that a Windows based PC can not for 1/3 the price.
I fixed a few facts where you gave apple credit for _anything_ original. All they did was put a colored fruit on a Xerox computer and call it "perfection." Incidentally, they totally screwed up the 68000 bus architecture and had to run the clock way down. So the Lisa was really slow and terrible for desktop publishing!! Anyway, for real video editing, people didn't use Apples. They used video editing machines all the way up until the late 2000's. They were hideously expensive, but very cool machines...and they ran windows btw. Before that, they used Amiga computers with video mixing capabilities. Almost every studio had their own Amiga for doing effects. Star Trek TNG for example had an Amiga 2500 doing the effects.
technically apple wasn't even relevant during the entire pre-2000s period when they brought unix workstations to corner shops. the apple 1 sold a mere 150-or-so units, wasn't the first computer 'with a keyboard and screen' and wasn't the first 6502 development board (really, that's all it is, a competitor to the kim-1 sym-1 and aim-65 development boards). the apple II was outsold by far by both atari and commodore, not to mention a whole lot of z80 and other based systems out there. and yet it's always 'apple apple apple' who fucking cares about crackpot jobs. other than the apple II line 'being able to keep it's pant's up commercially' the whole company wasn't a big success, and in fact, they still aren't. i'd say that out of all of the things apple computer inc. ever did the only thing that stands up as 'unique' today is that they managed to wipe sun and sgi out of the unix workstation market by not selling them through dealers where you have to make appointments but in retail shops. but that came far far far later with os-x and the G3s
Interesting video, Thank you Kim.
Is that some Final Fantasy 7 music I hear?
Loving your videos, keep em coming!
“Not long ago, the Black Gate of Armonk swung open. The lights went out, my skin crawled, and dogs began to howl. I asked my neighbor what it was and he said, ‘Those are the nazgul. Once they were human, now they are IBM’s lawyers.'”
dude I like your work and videos, keep it coming, msx and trs 80 , I hope , also go deeper with architecture of mother board. thanks
if recalled Total Difference between Mac & PC, then recall what is then an ibm PC, Think Rainbow Dec wiv z80 cp\m what Apple DECnet?
That advert was excellent
nice touch with soft cell at the end.
Great video as always. By the way, the other day I watched your Legends of Wrestling video and loved your quick coverage of the rise and fall of Acclaim. Do you think you would ever do a video on the rise, fall, and re-rise of Activision? Even though the company isn't very well-loved by gamers anymore, it's still pretty amazing to think that a premier publisher of the Atari 2600 era is now still a premier publisher today, albeit after going through a few rock-bottom years inbetween.
great video as always, though I am not sure about that guitar comparison. To me, the Amiga is the Stratocaster (for versatility, price and being ahead in innovation), while the PC at least in the 80s to me felt like an overpriced Danelectro or Silvertone winning the market :)
I worked as a system builder in the early 2000's and regularly got to test IBM, fugitsu, HP, Dell all of the key players basically. IBM computers (both desktop and laptops) would always do better in performance benchmark tests than the others. The IBM thinkpad was phenomenal compared to a similar spec Toshiba or Compaq. It's a shame really because IBM built such great machines but I guess at the time cost was more important for buyers, especially corporate clients who would buy machines in the 100's. The build quality of IBM PC's was far superior than all of their clones, their computers WERE better than the clones from the mid 90's onwards. The new war today in consumer computing is PC's vs Android and ultimately Android will win. Android isn't just your phone, it's your tablet, your firestick, your chromecast, your TV, etc. Some may say what about iphones but I honestly think that Iphones are a seperate marketplace now. In terms of the PC it will definitely be extinct by 2020 (at least for consumers) so lets celebrate a computer that is in essence nearly 30 years old. Not bad going when you look at it like that.
5150 is police code for 'crazy person' in the US.
Just ask Van Halen.... ;-)
Lou Reed 'Sattellitte'?
Have you thought about posting to retroware etc?
Your videos are on another level to most of the content on there ;)
My first pc was a ibm ps/2 let's see 386 50egs of hard drive space we decked it out with a cdrom a svga card and I want to say we put 2 megs of ram in that bad boy adlib sound blaster (forget what kind) and a fancy zip drive thing that went on to the next pc ,. Sorry made me remember my first pc lol
Hey Kim hope all is well with you. First of all, I must say that I totally enjoy your videos, . I just wanted to make a constructive criticism, I found that when I played the audio through a good set of speakers, as I enjoy capturing the full dynamics of your narrative. I found myself being distracted by the bedding tracks, not because of the genre of music, but because of the tempo, words and energy.
Most of the music simply clashes with your voice and is not in the right balance of your outstanding and high caliber of information that you deliver so well. Best regards...!!!
If I could suggest to you without me coming across as a know it all. Maybe if you tried lowering the music with a fader in between talking, or removing heavy sounding drums with an E.Q. and lower the vocal parts of tracks when you talk, I think you’ll agree it will work much better and will have the desired and professional effect that you deserve.
Throbbing Gristle - United from 26:04 :)
Great video, thanks. Have you researched the UK computer companies that fought (lost) against IBM and the clones. My dad worked for CPU Computers / LSI Computers from Woking, Surrey who launched great computers like the LSI Octopus with 8088 and Z80 running 8 and 16-bit software under Concurrent CP/M. Wonderful machines. Maybe you should interview him?
aaah the days of 386 and 486 PC's .. 3.5 inch disk drives, 40MB hard disks !!! 16MB of memoryl 640KB base memory (which DOS ran in) and then the rest of the memory > 1MB or so (I can't even remember) ran in either as Extended Memory or Expanded Memory), Windows 3.1 a non pre-emptive OS which crashed if any of the apps it was running also crashed, then there were 3DFx cards in addition to a graphics card ! When Windows NT came it was a god send !
I think I had a Voodoo 3Dfx .. which type of card would only work with the very first version of Resident Evil on the PC which the game used for 3D acceleration ? answers on a postcard..
Great video, but from what i heard, people didn't stick with PC DOS because it was the default. I heard that people had a choice of both PC DOS and CPM with CPM being sold for something like 3 times the price of PC DOS, so Gary Kildall basically got screwed. I cant remember exactly where i read/heard this from. It may have been on an Episode of Computer Chronicles after Gary passed away.
Another great documentary. =)
Awesome as always. How about a follow up on this film about window's domination of the software market?
I noticed that FF7 music ya put in there hehe nice vid!
Great stufff! Thank you!
19:30-21:10 what is this song ?
IBM* keyboards got the best "fidelity".
The only great loss here is that the Amiga couldn't last and continue to push the boundaries, but that had more to do with mismanaging, it seems. I'm glad for PCs. IBM set the stage for a more open market and that has only benefited the world.
cheers for sneaking throbbing gristle in there.
Still using a 30 year old model M keyboard today. Best keyboard ever made.
I'm using a Unicomp clone of the Model M; I dread typing on any other keyboard.
Even Apple computers are PC's these days.
great video!!! I don't get why ibm didn't drop their prices for the home market to compete with the clones.
More credits than an epic movie!
yes... I did know about digital, they made The apha processors That later was bought by AMD and integrited in The a64 processor later called The x64.... That is what we use today
I liked the multiple mentions of Compaq but I thought you were a tad remiss in not mentioning the Tandy 1000 and its role in getting IBM-compatible PCs into homes? Yeah sure, there were also Turbo XTs being sold to home users, but the Tandy 1000 had the size and support of the Radio Shack dealer network behind it.
great video!
Gratz on 10000 views ;)
interesting and well told thanks for the video
As a long time Atari user, I could not believe backward and overpriced technology like the IBM PC could ever take over. In the late 80's the ST was half the price and double the performance... and had non of the archaic prompt hassle, enhanced/expanded memory, video mode selection, IRQ settings just to run a game with a PC beeper. How wrong I was.. It's not a factor 2, 3, or even 4 difference in bang for buck. It's all about market traction. This is visible everywhere in the history of technology.