25 Apr
2008
25 Apr
'08
5:04 p.m.
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008, Jules Richardson wrote:
Who was IBM's competition at the time?
CP/M,
Apple ][, TRS80
I mean, were they up against someone
where it was necessary to get the product out the door as soon as possible, or
with hindsight could they have delayed launch a few months in order to get
some of the bigger software vendors on board?
Well, they did release Visicalc and EasyWriter with it.
But the issue may have been less about a launch delay, as about having
rapid growth of ported existing software.
(I'm not sure that CPU cost came into it - was a
68k really so much more than
an 8088 that it would have mattered on a machine costing close on $2k?)
I think that the extra cost would be worth it, but IBM was cutting LOTS of
corners. If the 8088 hadn't been available, I think that they would have
been more likely to go Z80 than 8086!
I'm not sure I'd buy a 5150 ever now, unless
one fell in my lap - I think I
could be talked into handing over cash for a 5160 though.
That's OK. By the time that I dig that stuff out, it will have become
historical artifacts.