28 Jun
2006
28 Jun
'06
8:32 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
Nobody's really pointed out that MCA is a *fast* bus. 66MHz PCI was
the first "generic" alternative to get even close to MCA's throughput,
let alone bandwidth.
The RS/6000 SP nodes used MCA till the way late '90s. They sure as
heck didn't do that because they had leftover parts.
Doc
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.
In the business world, it all comes down to the bottom line. I think
that of MCA was clearly in the black.
Failure?
If MCA was such a failure, IBM would have killed it off quite quickly.