Mike Powell wrote to DAVE DRUM <=-
They went to Microsoft for the operating system (QDOS, renamed PC-DOS
and later sold by Microsoft as MS-DOS) and to Intel +< for its 8088 processor. They chose an existing monitor from IBM Japan and a
dot-matrix printer by Epson. Only the keyboard and the system unit
itself were new designs from IBM. Even more shocking at the time, the
team opted to make the IBM PC an "open architecture" product, and
published a technical reference of the systemgCOs circuit designs and software source codes. With this information, other companies could
develop software and build peripheral components.
It is even more shocking in hindsight considering that they would later try to make it more difficult to use non-IBM parts on their machines.
Well, the guys who wrote the manuals and sneaked them past the bean
counters weren't the management pirates who woke up and realised that
they might lose a few pfennigs to the cloners. Sorta like Slick Willie
Gates gritting his teeth when some bright sparks cloned MS-DOS.
... Get your free subscription before the price doubles next year!
--- Talisman v0.47-dev (Windows/x86)
* Origin: Tiny's BBS II - tinysbbs.com:4323/ssh:4322 (1:229/452)