12 Oct
1998
12 Oct
'98
6:06 p.m.
From: Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net>
Subject: Re: Corrections to trivia
At 09:51 PM 10/7/98 -0700, you wrote:
I'd believe that: Z80 (CP/M) 6502 (Apple).
Intel came out the winners; they wanted it the
most. But it would have
happened with or without them. You had the 6800, the 6502 and a whole
slew of others. The computers built around those processors were just as
relevant and would have happened anyway.
I will admit up front that I don't know everything, and I am not an EE
(dropped out of community college) but it seems to me that Intel hadn't won
anything until ~81 when IBM came out with their PC. Until then, the Z80
and 6502 were as dominant (if not more so) than the 8080/8085? In fact, I'll go so far as to suggest that perhaps
if IBM had gone with,
say, the z8000, Intel would not be anywhere near as big as it is?
It seems to me that what really got the "cheap computer revolution" going
was the Z80 (CP/M, TRS-80, etc.) and the 6502 (Atari, Commodore, Apple II).
Because no matter what the tech-heads are doing in their garages, nothing
is a revolution until you can buy it at Sears.
One of the driving forces behind the prevelance of non-Intel micros in the 70s
was that Intel processors were expensive (actually they still are!). I think
the 8080 was about $200 when MOS started selling 6502s for under $40. Of
course with that Intel lowered thier prices (to about $100 or so). Not to say
that the Z80, 6502 and others were bad CPUs, it's just that Intel was not
looking for the hobbiest/home market at all, and if it wern't for a big
business name (IBM) behind it it would still be looking for a 'killer box'
(like 'killer app' is to software) to be used in.
And IBM was known for the safe route, proven chips and designs, (no innovation
made cloning alot easier) and Intel had the name and a good track record among
business machine microprocessors.
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