28 Jun
2006
28 Jun
'06
5:31 p.m.
Other than Tandy, there were almost no clone makers
for whom IBM
didn't think that they "owed" something from the
past.
Strange criterium, no? Of course the T2K posed no
significant threat, but the 1000 was not only a vamped
up Peanut, but in fact offered it at a much better
value. Hence a Peanut-killer? Shouldn't that have
ticked off Ol' Blue?
It was a failure because it was intended to become
the proprietary bus of
all x86 PC's and give IBM control over x86 clones.
What it did do is show
the world that the clone makers were in charge of
their own destiny and
standards (like EISA) and that the x86 platform would
remain non proprietary
and not under the control of one manufacturer.
Right. And also could it be that no one saw the need
for it? Besides compatibility was everything. Why
invest money in something incompatible, and not even
have the ability to use the old cards?
I suspect there's not much life left in the
"open up
the box and swap a
card" idea, at least as far as personal computers
go. Increasingly, I'm
seeing people who have NEVER been inside their
systems to add or upgrade a
card. Numbers of expansion slots are decreasing
(the system I'm writing
this on has a grand total of 3 PCI slots).
Often video and sound, not to mention USB and other
things, are included on the mobo. As long as people
want the ability to customize their peecess, the slots
will be there. Albeit not as many as in the past.
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