From: adam@address.invalid   
      
   Jim Beard wrote:   
   > On 07/03/2012 12:54 PM, Adam wrote:   
   >> That sounds like "backward compatibility" winning out over   
   >> technical superiority, although that's not always a bad thing.   
   >   
   > If technical superiority were the deciding factor, all personal   
   > computers would use the 68000 and its descendants by Motorola.   
   [...]   
   > And since IBM foresaw no great future for such machines, technical   
   > issues were disfavored.  IBM was very much ill-disposed toward letting   
   > Apple run wild with its personal computers, trivial though they were   
   > expected to be, because of the adverse affect on the IBM reputation,   
   > which was being smeared for lack of a wonderful machine such as the   
   > Apple (and later the Apple II).   
      
   And the TRS-80.  I grew up around Poughkeepsie, NY (IBM R&D), where at   
   that time IBM and its contractors comprised about 25% of all the jobs in   
   the area.  In the late '70s, any IBM employees who wanted to play with a   
   computer at home obviously had to buy something from another company.  I   
   heard at the time that one of the Radio Shack stores in Poughkeepsie   
   held the record for the most TRS-80 systems sold.   
      
   > Personal   
   > computers were not expected to be of any great importance, so it was of   
   > no importance to do things "the IBM way."   
      
   IMHO the most (or only) impressive feature of the original IBM PC was   
   the IBM name.  As I remember it, somehow that changed personal computers   
   from something for hobbyists into a "legitimate" home product.   
      
   I also remember that microprocessors were already of some importance   
   before that.  In spring '81 (months before the original IBM PC came   
   out), I had one college course where we were handed a bunch of chips and   
   spec sheets, and had to design and build a microprocessor system (very   
   hands-on).  At the time I was impressed that we were given a "real"   
   microprocessor, the 6502, the same one Apple was using in their computers.   
      
   > I have often wondered how the careers of those that made those decisions   
   > were affected by how things worked out, but I have never felt it worth   
   > the effort to learn who they were and how their careers progressed.   
      
   They were mostly in Boca Raton, so it wasn't the fathers of anybody I   
   knew.  (I think some of my public school classmates' fathers had worked   
   on S/360 and S/370.)  I heard that Don Estridge, who was in charge of   
   the whole PC project, died in a plane crash in 1985.  Most of them   
   probably just followed the usual IBM career path.   
      
   Did I ever post my "Growing Up in an IBM Community" piece to this   
   newsgroup? :-)   
      
   Adam   
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