madd@world.std.com (jim frost) (11/04/89)
korenek@ficc.uu.net (Gary Korenek) writes: >In article <143@asihub.UUCP>, jmp@asihub.UUCP (John Pantone) writes: >> Microsoft and IBM simply blew it when designing MSDOS and the PC... >3. IBM put it's tail on the line in introducing the IBM PC. No one > knew it would take off like a rocket. It was a huge gamble. The PC was at least IBM's second attempt at creating a PC. Another attempt was called the "IBM System/23 Datamaster". It ran only BASIC (sound familiar? BASIC in ROM?), had 2 8" drives, was closed-architecture, and used EBCDIC. The BASIC was by far the strangest dialect I've ever seen (heavy FORTRAN influence, I think) but was excellent for doing record-oriented I/O. The machine was a flop. It was such a big flop that almost nobody I know has ever heard of it. IBM screwed everyone who bought one of those things, dropping support almost immediately. People were extremely unhappy with IBM's concept of "PC" at the time. What happened to all the Datamasters? Well, the original PC keyboard is an exact duplicate of that used on the Datamaster with the exception of the printing on the tops of the keys and the fact that the keyboard is separate from the CPU.... In short, IBM just keeps trying things until something works, just like Edison with the lightbulb. They have the resources to do it, while others try much harder to make intelligent decisions. So, we're stuck with a braindamaged DOS and limited hardware. Sigh. Followups redirected to comp.sys.ibm.pc. jim frost software tool & die "The World" Public Access Unix for the '90s madd@std.com +1 617-739-WRLD 24hrs {3,12,24}00bps
jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) (11/09/89)
In article <1989Nov3.191142.4163@world.std.com> madd@world.std.com (jim frost) writes: >korenek@ficc.uu.net (Gary Korenek) writes: >>In article <143@asihub.UUCP>, jmp@asihub.UUCP (John Pantone) writes: >>> Microsoft and IBM simply blew it when designing MSDOS and the PC... >>3. IBM put it's tail on the line in introducing the IBM PC. No one >> knew it would take off like a rocket. It was a huge gamble. >The PC was at least IBM's second attempt at creating a PC. Another >attempt was called the "IBM System/23 Datamaster". It ran only BASIC >The machine was a flop. It was such a big flop that almost nobody I >know has ever heard of it. IBM screwed everyone who bought one of Wow! This is the first time I ever heard of anyone who ever heard of this machine. Years ago I wrote a payroll program in it. The support for it was so bad that the company eventually switched to TRS80 model IIs. This leads me to another question:: How many people have used RM/COS on a TRS-80 Model 12 or 16? This is a really gross COBOL operating system which ran RealWorld Accounting. The TRS-80 Model-II through 16 was an interesting machine. It started out as a Z80 system similer to Radio Shack's TRS-80 Model-Is and IIIs. They then added a 68000 to it with Model 12. Both the Z80 and 68000 had protection. The 68000 side had a register for relocating programs. It's biggest problem was that all the I/O had to go through the Z80 so it was slow. It had 4 operating systems: - TRSDOS (yuck: single user flat file system) - TRSDOS-16 (same as above but with 68000 support) - RM/COS (multi-user, small, hierachial directory structure by having a level number attached to each file in one main directory) - XENIX (nice but required 3 out of the 8MB of available disk space- BTW, I've recently seen TRS-80 Model 16s with built in hard drive and 8" high density floppy drives on sale _by radio shack_ for $1000)
bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) (11/17/89)
In article <5412@wpi.wpi.edu> jhallen@wpi.wpi.edu (Joseph H Allen) writes: >In article <1989Nov3.191142.4163@world.std.com> madd@world.std.com (jim frost) writes: >How many people have used RM/COS on a TRS-80 Model 12 or 16? This is a really >gross COBOL operating system which ran RealWorld Accounting. The TRS-80 >Model-II through 16 was an interesting machine. It started out as a Z80 >system similer to Radio Shack's TRS-80 Model-Is and IIIs. The ONLY similarity was the z80. The rest was quite different. > They then added a >68000 to it with Model 12. The model 12 was a model II with 1/2 height 8" drives. Adding the 68000 it became a model 16. Just correcting some mis-information here. Don't want history to become corrupt :-) >- XENIX (nice but required 3 out of the 8MB of available disk space- BTW, > I've recently seen TRS-80 Model 16s with built in hard drive > and 8" high density floppy drives on sale _by radio shack_ for > $1000) And I bought one used with 3 terminals for $600. Followups are posted to comp.sys.tandy -- Bill Vermillion - UUCP: {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd}!peora!tarpit!bilver!bill : bill@bilver.UUCP