18 May
2005
18 May
'05
11:06 a.m.
At 22:28 17/05/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
Will they still be intended for use by one person? I
don't know why we
didn't think of it before, but instead of "Microcomputer" it should
perhaps be "Personal Computer".
The companies I used to work for sold the BOS operating system.. Although
it initially ran on intentionally multi-user systems, it was entirely
possible to run multi-user on any supported hardware with enough serial
ports for users - including and specifically actual IBM PC "Personal
Computers" .. (I had definitely encountered 5 user systems in use on
8086/8088 based machines, though there weren't many left that old even when
I started.)
The worst processor/user ratio I think I encountered was about 50 users
sharing a 486dx50.. It was in a rack case, in the top 6" of a 4' rack, the
rest being blocked in empty space except for a UPS sat in the bottom. The
users most definitely called it "the mainframe" !
Rob.