19 Apr
2013
19 Apr
'13
4 a.m.
On 18 Apr 2013, at 19:53, "Dave McGuire" <mcguire at neurotica.com>
wrote:
Not really, no. Most mainframes didn't have a bus per se, until
comparatively recently.
Ah. I guess I need to go research the hardware of older big iron then.
Thanks!
On 04/18/2013 04:28 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
How many people outside of IBM cloned it though? It definitely
didn't survive as long as PCI.
"Cloned" it? Almost noone, as IBM aggressively pursued those who did.
Lots of companies *licensed* it legitimately and made boards. No, it
was nowhere near as popular as PCI in absolute terms, but adjusted for the number of
companies making "boards for desktop computers", as well as the number of small
computers produced increasing over time, it was by no means a commercial failure...not by
any stretch.
Ah. That would explain why so few "cloned" it then. ;)
Yeah. Every time I think of IBM mainframe designs...I
can't
help but wonder why microchannel for the microcomputer market
never took off.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that it never took off. It was very
popular for a long time. Many manufacturers made MCA cards. It
was also big in the RS/6000 world.
However...that has nothing at all to do with mainframes. Some of
the "baby" development system "mainframes" like the P/390 do use
MCA...there's an MCA version of the P/390 card. (that was the
first one, the next two were PCI)
I thought the architecture was derived from some of the designs IBM
implemented for the busses in their mainframes? Speaking of keyboards?it seems like one of the
ones you gave me has
failed! Seems to be an issue with its little electronics.
That figures. I have more; I'll put some in your pile.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA