Re: Mimic Spartan(s) for me!

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Christopher D. Heer replied:

>Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>20010516154641.13427.00000030@ng-mn1.aol.com">news:20010516154641.13427.00000030@ng-mn1.aol.com...
>
>> The only successful "hijacking" of one company's design by another
>> company--that is, taking actual control over the extension of the
>> architecture--
>> was Compaq taking over the design of the IBM PC.  When IBM tried to
>> "shake them off" by going to the PS/2 design, the market chose to follow
>> Compaq (et al.) rather than IBM--and the rest is history...
>
>Not to be pedantic, but Compaq didn't really extend the architecture.  The
>EISA standard from the "gang of 9" came and went very, very quickly, as did
>the VESA local bus.
>
>Intel actually did the first real advancement with the PCI standard.

I would agree that PCI was a significant extension of the PC architecture,
and that many companies have participated over the years.  Of course,
these days, it's Microsoft and Intel that "define" the PC.

But Compaq was the first to design a PC incorporating the 80386,
which was the beginning of the modern PC.  For them to do this before
IBM was quite audacious, and risked sending their platforms "off into
the weeds" if IBM had taken the wider-addressing processor in another
direction on the platform.  Of course, the choices were constrained by
the need to preserve complete compatibility with DOS, et al.

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/