#2 2013-07-15 08:52:33
I worked on the first IBM PC back when I was working for IBM NA in 1983. The Ctrl-Alt-Del was well known from the start and was not only later popularized by MSFT.
And as for the Datamaster, it wasn't 'flawed'... it worked well for what it was - basically a personal word processor... its only problem was that it was simply too big. DisplayWrite, which ran on both the Datamaster and the IBM PC, was a very powerful word processing program for a non-windowed application and was a market leader for many years. Oddly enough, it was the only IBM PC program that I know of that saved its data in EBCDIC, not ASCII.
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#3 2013-07-15 10:26:05
Forgive me for trolling you with such a lame link but I bumped into Tracey Kidder several times when he was researching Soul of a New Machine; 1981 (pdf) and it's always troubled me there was a boatload of fascinating detail omitted from history's first draft.
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#4 2013-07-15 21:06:44
It almost seemed to me, at the time, that the original IBM XT was Big Blue Iron's cynical response to the PC "fad".
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#5 2013-07-15 22:24:02
Baywolfe wrote:
It almost seemed to me, at the time, that the original IBM XT was Big Blue Iron's cynical response to the PC "fad".
What I saw was a team blessed with rare independence and market muscle to scour the globe for the cheapest solution to the problem. And I still miss those tactile tombstone keyboards, with function keys where the good lord meant them to sit.
Last edited by choad (2013-07-15 22:24:37)
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#6 2013-07-16 01:14:25
choad wrote:
What I saw was a team blessed with rare independence and market muscle to scour the globe for the cheapest solution to the problem. And I still miss those tactile tombstone keyboards, with function keys where the good lord meant them to sit.
They're pricey, but you can still get real buckling spring keyboards made on the old Lexmark (IBM) machinery. I'm using a Unicomp I bought a few years ago right now.
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#7 2013-07-16 18:47:28
choad wrote:
Baywolfe wrote:
It almost seemed to me, at the time, that the original IBM XT was Big Blue Iron's cynical response to the PC "fad".
What I saw was a team blessed with rare independence and market muscle to scour the globe for the cheapest solution to the problem. And I still miss those tactile tombstone keyboards, with function keys where the good lord meant them to sit.
But the IBM PCs weren't the cheapest computers.
In fact, their prices are responsible for advent of the clone market, including a fly-by-night company called, Dell, who followed IBM's specs closer than IBM did.
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#8 2013-07-16 19:14:53
Baywolfe wrote:
choad wrote:
What I saw was a team blessed with rare independence and market muscle to scour the globe for the cheapest solution to the problem. And I still miss those tactile tombstone keyboards, with function keys where the good lord meant them to sit.
But the IBM PCs weren't the cheapest computers.
In fact, their prices are responsible for advent of the clone market, including a fly-by-night company called, Dell, who followed IBM's specs closer than IBM did.
All true, but beside the point. IBM's Acorn project created the market for ungainly, mass market Tin Lizzies, along with a blue print for rest of planet to follow.
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#9 2013-07-16 19:29:33
I worked for Wang back then. So much more elegant than IBM!
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#10 2013-07-16 20:56:10
Dmtdust wrote:
I worked for Wang back then. So much more elegant than IBM!
Shouldn't somebody have mentioned to them what their name meant in English?
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#11 2013-07-16 21:32:55
Dmtdust wrote:
I worked for Wang back then. So much more elegant than IBM!
I'm sure if you had gone to certain bars you could have gotten wang for free; but that's just me guessing as I've always been into pussy myself.
Last edited by Emmeran (2013-07-16 21:33:25)
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