From cisin@xenosoft.com Thu Oct 25 19:24:12 2001
From: cisin@xenosoft.com
To: test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org
Subject: SLOT 8 (was: ISA cards for free..
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 19:24:12 +0000
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.21.0110251718290.11789-100000@lanshark.lmi.net>
In-Reply-To: <001101c15daf$cf781d20$9cc762d8@idcomm.com>
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On Thu, 25 Oct 2001, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> REALLY!  I had no idea that they'd so something so silly as dedicate a slot=
 on
> an otherwise modern (unlike the APPLE-][) backplane.

A company as big as IBM "doesn't HAVE TO learn from the mistakes of
others".  Remember the PCJr original keyboard?


> What's different about that slot?=20

"Wrong" side of a buffer.

> I've never owned a "real" XT, so I've never
> had to wrestle with that.  My first PC was a '186-based clone, and I've nev=
er
> looked back. Was that "slot-8" compatibility creature a bug in the PC as we=
ll?

IBM had a LOT of serial cards that nobody wanted (on a 5 slot PC, the
market wanted multifunction!)
Every XT from IBM came with a "FREE" serial card.  It blocked slot 8 from
being used by anything else that MIGHT have a problem with it, and gave
the public image impression of a generous (they were more expensive then!)
freebie.

>  Was that "slot-8" compatibility creature a bug in the PC as well?
Yes and no.  :-)
Since the PC had 5 slots, there was HARDLY EVER a problem with slot number
8!

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred        cisin(a)xenosoft.com
<A HREF=3D "http://www.xenosoft.com/dogears" >DogEars</A>

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