Re: x86 architecture concepts

From: Anton Erasmus (nobody_at_spam.prevent.net)
Date: 02/25/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:50:10 +0200

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:34:22 GMT, Kelly Hall <khall@acm.org> wrote:

>"CBFalconer" <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote
>>>Without that decision [nominal 8080 compatability]
>>>we wouldn't have the Microsoft/Gates monopoly
>>>sucking at us today.
>
>It only sucks at you if you let it. Alternatives exist for just about
>any Microsoft product. Many of the alternatives are pretty good. Many
>suck worse than the Windows version.
>
> >>It was a horrible decision for which the personal
> >>computer industry has suffered immeasurably
> >>for the past 20 years.
>
>"Labored", perhaps, but "suffered"? You want to talk suffering,
>consider the minicomputer and mainframe computer folks over the last 20
>years.
>
>Nicholas O. Lindan wrote:
>> The tragedy of the PC is that IBM didn't take Intel's
>> iRMX operating system and PLM/86 and instead went to
>> a scheming little college drop-out who took them blind
>> and saddled them with kinder spiel technology.
>
>Seems to me that IBM and Microsoft both did quite well based on that
>business decision. Could they have made better (more elegant) technical
>decisions? Certainly. But it's not clear that they would have made
>more money with more elegant technology.

I think the question should be. Would they have made any less money if
they had implemented a better technical solution ?. Would the systems
available today be more advanced if less money was spent on getting
the existing non-elegent solution to be faster and still stay
compatible. ? Many corporations seem to manufacture less than optimal
solutions, and then just quadruple the advertising budget and use less
than savoury tactics to get rid of the better solutions.

>Alternatives have always existed, since IBM offered CPM-86 and UCSD
>P-System in the catalog along with PC/MS-DOS. UCSD was non-starter for
>business folks, and DRI priced themselves out of the market. MS-DOS was
>good enough for Visicalc and WordStar, and the rest is history.
>
>Technical elegance and good business intersect too rarely.

That is a signicant cultural problem in the western world today. Often
a much better product can be provided while the same amount of money
is made. It seems that in todays corporate culture the idea is to make
as much money as possible while providing the worst possible product.
The client is "THE ENEMY". One can unserstand that compnaies have to
make money, but in the end of the day the actual services and products
that the companies provide should be the important thing. The actual
value of money is very little. One cannot eat it, it does not provide
transport and all the thousands of other things people need or want.

Regards
   Anton Erasmus

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