As far as open architecture, ISA was very well
documented and noone needed
to pay IBM to use the buss. MCA was a different story. The PC wasn't an
open architecture, but the effects were something of the same. Heck there
are ISA slots on Amigas, Ataris, etc.....
Regards,
Jeff
In <Pine.GSO.4.05.10111111318580.21847-100000(a)sundance.cse.ucsc.edu>du>, on
11/11/01
at 01:32 PM, "Francis. Javier Mesa" <javi(a)cse.ucsc.edu> said:
Speaking of M$, I was reading the other day a
keynote speech by BillyBoy
in which he claimed that DOS got such a widespread use because they
contributed with an open architecture, the PC. As far as I know the PC
was not open at all (i.e. the BIOS, etc), and most importantly the PC was
not their architecture! The key components of what made a PC a PCE were
supposed to be propietary, and most of the early clones that used DOS had
copied BIOSs which were theoretically illegal. So basically BillyBoy was
admiting that his empire was based on the encouragement of piracy by
their OEM clients of IBM's IP. Interesting, eh?
--
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Jeffrey S. Worley
Asheville, NC USA
828-6984887
UberTechnoid(a)Home.com
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