henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/17/85)
> >Intel has made a lot of money, at everyone else's expense: they > >have probably succeeded in setting the industry back ten years. > > Let's see, 10 years ago.... Ah yes, the 8080 was just introduced... > I believe a company called MITS introduced the Altair 8800.... The machine > which really started the PC revolution.... > > Seems to me, this may qualify INTEL as the company that set the industry > ahead 10 years. The relevant question is not "did Intel make major contributions?" but "would we be a lot further ahead if Intel had had the sense to make their 16-bit processor design incompatible with the 8080?". I stand by my contention that the brain-damage of the 8086 has had a huge negative impact on the industry, much of which is only starting to be felt. > Last I checked Henry, the free world revolved around one > person making money at anothers expense.... If you are arguing against > capitalism, I think you are on the wrong net. The idea behind capitalism, which I fully subscribe to, is that *both* parties to the transaction benefit from it. Here we have Intel making a bundle of money while locking their customers into a backward architecture that will cause them untold grief in the long run. Selling soft drinks that taste good but give people cancer is not kosher, capitalism or not. > Going back further, if I remember correctly, INTEL introduced the first > "general purpose" micro, the 4004... I remember reading the 4004 manual. The 8086 manual is sort of familiar in spots as a result. That is precisely the problem. > In the free market system, those who prduce trashy processors that are a > waste of good sand do one thing.... lose the stockholders a great deal of > money and upset a few fools that design the product in anyway.. Surely you are not contending that quality == sales?!? The counterexamples of this are too numerous to list. If you want non-Intel examples, consider the RL01 and the VT100 (better have your barf bag ready when you get to the TS11...). Incidentally, too many people to count have already cursed the fools who designed in the 8086/8088/... -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/21/85)
[This is a reposting of <6145@utzoo.UUCP>, which got mangled somewhere down the line. I got comments on this from enough places that I think it is worth trying once more to get a clean copy out.] > >Intel has made a lot of money, at everyone else's expense: they > >have probably succeeded in setting the industry back ten years. > > Let's see, 10 years ago.... Ah yes, the 8080 was just introduced... > I believe a company called MITS introduced the Altair 8800.... The machine > which really started the PC revolution.... > > Seems to me, this may qualify INTEL as the company that set the industry > ahead 10 years. The relevant question is not "did Intel make major contributions?" but "would we be a lot further ahead if Intel had had the sense to make their 16-bit processor design incompatible with the 8080?". I stand by my contention that the brain-damage of the 8086 has had a huge negative impact on the industry, much of which is only starting to be felt. > Last I checked Henry, the free world revolved around one > person making money at anothers expense.... If you are arguing against > capitalism, I think you are on the wrong net. The idea behind capitalism, which I fully subscribe to, is that *both* parties to the transaction benefit from it. Here we have Intel making a bundle of money while locking their customers into a backward architecture that will cause them untold grief in the long run. Selling soft drinks that taste good but give people cancer is not kosher, capitalism or not. > Going back further, if I remember correctly, INTEL introduced the first > "general purpose" micro, the 4004... I remember reading the 4004 manual. The 8086 manual is sort of familiar in spots as a result. That is precisely the problem. > In the free market system, those who prduce trashy processors that are a > waste of good sand do one thing.... lose the stockholders a great deal of > money and upset a few fools that design the product in anyway.. Surely you are not contending that quality == sales?!? The counterexamples of this are too numerous to list. If you want non-Intel examples, consider the RL01 and the VT100 (better have your barf bag ready when you get to the TS11...). Incidentally, too many people to count have already cursed the fools who designed in the 8086/8088/... -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry