From: bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com   
      
   On 07/03/2012 04:23 PM, Adam wrote:   
   > 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."   
      
   	IBM was particularly blind to the possibility of private   
   uses for computers.  Time-sharing on the big college machines was   
   the best they could think of.   
      
   >   
   > 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.   
      
   	There was a saying that no one got fired for buying IBM.   
   >   
   > 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? :-)   
   	   
   	Not that I have seen.   
   >   
   > Adam   
      
   	bliss   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)