[ros-general] ros chatter

[Mark Grosberg]

On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Rick Parrish wrote:

> That would be the birthplace of the IBM PC.  You know the one - Intel
> 8088 microprocessor with 64k DRAM, choice of monochrome or CGA graphics,

As somebody who cut his teath on the 6502 I can say I am well aware
of that... However, I tend to use the term PC as only "IBM PC" and the
term computer for everything else. I am certainly no lover of that
architecture, the electrically ugly ISA bus, 4-bit latch DMA hacks, and
inept firmware that is the PC.

> Actually it *was* a great architecture because it was so open and easy
> to duplicate. We've enjoyed commodity "beige box" pricing on most of our
> hardware for most of the last two decades because of it.

I dunno. It may have been open, but it certainly wasn't good. Electrically
the ISA bus had problems (which don't show up at 8MHz -- but the layout of
the signals on the connector sure cause problems); the BIOS is pretty
dumb. Had it been designed correctly we could have had multi-tasking in
8086 real mode... The DMA hacks on a PC are only now being somewhat
removed.

The flaws in that system architecture have been kept around far too long.

Actually, I use Apple & Sun hardware at home (and mostly Sun 4m's for the
Sun's), so PC hardware isn't helping me much with cost. PCI is nice but
really came out of a somewhat unexpected area at Intel and is amazingly
portable and clean -- in partiuclar the clever use of reflection for
switching.

But the IBM Boca Plant housed many other projects besides the PC. In
particular I happen to posess the sign that was at the front hallway: "The
Home of OS/2" -- I passed on the "Birthplace of the PC" sign below it. ;-)

And I was certainly a big OS/2 fan back in the day (the workplace shell is
far superior to Windows Explorer, IMHO).

L8r,
Mark G.