Re: Your first A2.

[Liam Busey <buseyl@yahoo.com>]

william strutts wrote:


> > > Amen to that! PCs are mondane, boring, and have no soul--like a VCR,
> > > toaster, or any other common household appliance.
> >
> > Oh come on! That's an over generalization. Some PCs were really
> > interesting. Tell me the PCjr has no personality.

> Nope.

Huh?! I'm amazed. Even with its cartridge ports, cassette interface,
railroad external expansion bus, and wireless IR chicklet keyboard the
PCjr still qualifies as mundane, boring, and souless PC? Come now! This
machine belongs in a circus freak show!

 
> The only PC manufacturer I cut a little slack for is Radio
> Shack and that is because they were there inventing PC's
> before Big Blue stuck its fingers into the pot.  Then it is
> only the Tandy 1000 series that has any character. However,
> I think that the TRS-80 series had more character because
> they charted unknown territory with their machines just like
> Apple did with the II series.  The IBM's were an attempt by
> Big Blue to cash in on the new fad PC's and was a lame
> attempt at copying the Apple II.  The big difference was
> that big business saw the PC as the "standard" to follow and
> hence we proceeded to box making commodity computers.
> AKA Clones.  Not very interesting in my opinion.

Weren't the Rat Shack 1000 series computers PCjr clones? I don't
remember. Trash 80s are okay but I always wanted to try out a Coco. With
the 6809 MPU and OS/9 they must have been a joy to play with.

I agree that the original IBM PC was a rather uninspired machine but I
believe the blame for the proliferation of PC clowns belongs to Phoenix.
IIRC, IBM tried its darndest to recapture the market with MCA and its
PS/2s but ultimately failed. 

It's too bad bad Apple was so successful killing its clone problem.
Otherwise the II might still be around.

Liam Busey