Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

["Was never here; where ever here is." <noone@hereatall.com>]

Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> wrote in message
news:b0duh2$199v$1@merope.saaf.se...
<snip>

> Depends on WHICH version of CP/M you wanted to use.  Although you
> needed extra hardware to run CP/M-80 on the IBM PC, CP/M-86 ran on it
> without extra hardware.  The early IBM PC offered a choice of three
> different OS'es: MS-DOS, CP/M-86 or UCSD Pascal.  I know of some
> software developers around 1981-82 who used the UCSD Pascal platform
> on the Apple II with the explicit purpose of being able to easily
> port their application to the IBM PC, where they envisioned UCSD
> Pascal to also become an important OS.
>

As a lending officer ('82 or '83) I was approached by the manufacturer of
the the "Baby Blue" card, a complete Z-80 computer w/ 64K ram on an IBM-PC
peripheral card. Boy am  glad I didn't make that loan, but I sure was
convinced that this product would fly. (Somewhat biased by having purchased
a $5000 IMS International Z-80 TurboDos behemoth not long prior.) I was
doing "serious" database programming - for that day at least - and who would
want the IBM when there was no software to speak of. Everyone would need
this CP/M board in order to run serious software on the new PC.


Can't disagree with too much of the editorial, I get nostalgic myself for
that old IIe and the TurboDos. One point though, I don't recall any of this
being really computing for the masses: I think my Apple IIe was around $1400
or at least $1200. Serious money in those days and if you take inflation
into account, you get much, much more for your money today. (And with a
modern game controller, you won't wear a hold in your thumb as we did
playing Space Invaders on the Apple with those cheapy controllers.)  For 95%
of users, a PC is now just another appliance/entertainment device.