| Author |
Message |
Bill Bradley
Guest
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 Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 7:23 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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Larry Elmore wrote:
| Quote: | keith wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
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Timex Sinclair 1000? |
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Nick Maclaren
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:15 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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In article <pan.2005.10.06.02.19.08.735395@att.bizzzz>,
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:58:10 +0800, prep wrote:
The Lisa was only ever a `proof of concept' machine for the `new one'
that was to follow, what we know as the Mac.
More revisionist history.
|
When insulting people, it is a good idea to provide some justification,
because we can then see if the dissention arises in a misunderstanding.
The Lisa was somwhere between a proof of concept and a production
system, and it is unclear that its makers ever quite made up their
minds which they intended it to be.
Yes, the original proofs of concept were the XeroX systems, but the
Lisa was, inter alia, meant to answer the questions "Can WE make such
a system for an affordable price?" and "Is there actually any interest
outside the computer science community?" It did, and the rest is
history :-)
Regards,
Nick Maclaren. |
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Larry Elmore
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 8:15 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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keith wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
|
IBM PC jr.? |
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George Macdonald
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:17 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:19:10 -0400, keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:58:10 +0800, prep wrote:
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> writes:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
The Lisa was only ever a `proof of concept' machine for the `new one'
that was to follow, what we know as the Mac.
More revisionist history.
|
Hell, even Wikipedia gets it right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa. Jeez it didn't even have a
LaserWriter yet to make it desirable. I remember back then, every
Computer/PC Whorehouse/Barn/Den, etc. etc. -- and there were a lot of them
then -- had one of those things sitting up front in plain view as the next
big thing. When I laughed the guy got very upset. One time my wife had to
drag me out before things turned umm, nasty.
--
Rgds, George Macdonald |
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George Macdonald
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:17 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:18:25 -0400, keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | On Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:12:11 -0400, George Macdonald wrote:
It was supposed to be. ;-) Remember, RISC was the savior, CISC was
dead-end. Oops.
There *had* been some horrible CISC machines when that was in fashion.:-)
Like x86 and /370? ;-)
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Well, err, actually... I was thinking of VAX, 68020 and 32032.. VAX never
really got its due for just how bad (overdue) it was at the end. On top of
the heavily CISCed Mem<-op->Mem operations, which often ran slower than the
combination of individual reg/mem instructions, there was the 512Byte page
size. A 386/33 PC could spank it on CPU only stuff. The orthogonality of
the ISA was beautiful, the results....<ptui>
--
Rgds, George Macdonald |
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MSCHAEF.COM
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Oct 06, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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In article <tU%0f.10760$q1.8099@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>,
Bill Bradley <senator2@NOSPAMearthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | Larry Elmore wrote:
keith wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
Timex Sinclair 1000?
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The TS1000 at least had the benefit of being inexpensive.
-Mike
--
http://www.mschaef.com |
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George Macdonald
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 07, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On 6 Oct 2005 07:57:02 GMT, nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote:
| Quote: | In article <pan.2005.10.06.02.19.08.735395@att.bizzzz>,
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:58:10 +0800, prep wrote:
The Lisa was only ever a `proof of concept' machine for the `new one'
that was to follow, what we know as the Mac.
More revisionist history.
When insulting people, it is a good idea to provide some justification,
because we can then see if the dissention arises in a misunderstanding.
The Lisa was somwhere between a proof of concept and a production
system, and it is unclear that its makers ever quite made up their
minds which they intended it to be.
|
It was in stores, it was being bought, businesses were using it. That's
"production" in my book. Check the history: the two projects were started
a year apart and were released a year apart and both took about 5 years to
complete. They were released to obviously different target markets; it
just so happened that the Lisa was a market failure and the plummeting cost
of parts allowed the Mac to fill the same slot.
--
Rgds, George Macdonald |
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keith
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:09 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 07:57:02 +0000, Nick Maclaren wrote:
| Quote: | In article <pan.2005.10.06.02.19.08.735395@att.bizzzz>,
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:58:10 +0800, prep wrote:
The Lisa was only ever a `proof of concept' machine for the `new one'
that was to follow, what we know as the Mac.
More revisionist history.
When insulting people, it is a good idea to provide some justification,
because we can then see if the dissention arises in a misunderstanding.
|
You may like your own version of "history" but I'll call crap, "crap"
when I see it. The *fact* is that Lisa was not in any way a "proof of
concept" system and was intended to be sold. One would think you're a
newb, but you're old enough to know better. Sheesh!
| Quote: | The Lisa was somwhere between a proof of concept and a production
system, and it is unclear that its makers ever quite made up their minds
which they intended it to be.
|
Horse shit! That's like saying "Bob" was prototype software. Get real,
Nick!
| Quote: | Yes, the original proofs of concept were the XeroX systems, but the Lisa
was, inter alia, meant to answer the questions "Can WE make such a
system for an affordable price?" and "Is there actually any interest
outside the computer science community?" It did, and the rest is
history :-)
|
Was it intended for sale? Good grief, I think I'll not believe any
version of "history" you tell again!
--
Keith |
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keith
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:11 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:17:24 -0500, Larry Elmore wrote:
| Quote: | keith wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
|
Yeah that was a winner, particularly as sold. It wasn't so bad with
640K (the memory sidecar was easy to upgrade from 128K to 512K) and a pile
of external hardware. I bought one for the kid on a "fire sale".
--
Keith |
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Nick Maclaren
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 07, 2005 1:35 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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In article <3tabk1ds31f456pr29nvonnmtsuf8dqbng@4ax.com>,
George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
The Lisa was somwhere between a proof of concept and a production
system, and it is unclear that its makers ever quite made up their
minds which they intended it to be.
It was in stores, it was being bought, businesses were using it. That's
"production" in my book. Check the history: ....
|
There were a lot of my colleagues who were closely involved with
XeroX PARC, and several of them talked at length to Jobs and others
when he was starting that up. I was more peripherally involved,
but did have some personal knowledge.
It wasn't an isn't rare for companies to put a proof of concept onto
the market - not just in IT, but elsewhere - to see whether it has
a chance. Anyone who has been around for a while can think of many
examples. So the two categories that you think of as disjoint
actually overlap, plus there are products that do not fit neatly into
either category. Try a few:
The IBM Blue Gene (up to c. 2 years back)
The Hitachi SR2201
The Tera MTA
The Sinclair C5 :-)
Regards,
Nick Maclaren. |
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Jason Lee Eckhardt
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:49 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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In article <pan.2005.10.07.02.11.22.926002@att.bizzzz>,
keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:17:24 -0500, Larry Elmore wrote:
keith wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
Yeah that was a winner, particularly as sold. It wasn't so bad with
640K (the memory sidecar was easy to upgrade from 128K to 512K) and a pile
of external hardware. I bought one for the kid on a "fire sale".
|
Heh, I forgot about those funny side-car expansions that screwed
into the side of the Jr, each one extending the width of the box
by at least an inch.
And then there was that terrible "chicklet" keyboard (ala TRS-80 Coco I),
which has keys resembling the look-and-feel of a touchtone phone.
With the standard memory configuration, performance was often
sluggish due to shared RAM for video and CPU. Expanding memory
helped that. I'm not sure that dual-cartridge port was a great
idea either (imagine Nintendo-style cartridges being plugged into
the front of your PC). It didn't even come with a parallel port,
you had to add a side-car just for that (and I think the limit was
three side-cars). Lack of DMA for disk transfers was a real
lame feature.
Perhaps the biggest problem was that it wasn't 100% IBM PC
backwards compatible. I seem to remember it had a different floppy
controller so that PC software using direct hardware access to the floppy
(e.g., COPYII-PC) wouldn't work on the Jr. Some of the I/O ports
were also at different addresses, and the memory map wasn't quite
the same as the PC. So the Jr. required special versions of many
programs.
But some things were nice about the machine-- such as having decent
16-color graphics (as opposed to that ugly PC CGA), 3-voice sound
chip (IIRC), etc.
---
Another vote for worst would have to be the TRS-80 MC-10 Color Computer--
a stripped down CoCo about the size of a Timex Sinclair, also with
a (very small) chicklet keyboard. |
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Larry Elmore
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:15 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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keith wrote:
| Quote: | On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:17:24 -0500, Larry Elmore wrote:
keith wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:42:06 -0500, MSCHAEF.COM wrote:
In article <5odqj15j2orkbduu9hb6jvofbl4rg5jn66@4ax.com>,
chrisv <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
Yeah that was a winner, particularly as sold. It wasn't so bad with
640K (the memory sidecar was easy to upgrade from 128K to 512K) and a pile
of external hardware. I bought one for the kid on a "fire sale".
|
The chiclet keys were awful. |
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Zak
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:00 pm Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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Bill Bradley wrote:
| Quote: | Nick Maclaren wrote:
A question for all you omniscient ones out there - what were the
worst computers of all time?
Coleco Adam?
Apple ///?
Lisa?
IBM PC jr.?
Timex Sinclair 1000?
|
Philips had a CPU, the 2650, and built a gaming console out of it - with
a full (membrane) keyboard. You could get BASIC but no cassette or disk
or anything.
http://computermuseum.50megs.com/brands/g7000.htm
The site probably has other 'bad' computers. But the Times/ZX80 was not
so much bad as of cheap design and constriction.
Thomas |
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Nate Edel
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 09, 2005 5:17 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
| Quote: | Oh come on - CGA? Most folks got a Hercules monochrome card for business
use from what I saw... until EGA came along.
I don't know where some of my posts have gone....
Yes, CGA. There was no "Hercules" when the PC came out.
|
There was, however, MDA (no graphics, text only). Most of the
first-generation PCs I saw had those, rather than CGA, and my impression was
that they were a concurrent part of the original release.
--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
"I do have a cause, though. It is Obscenity. I'm for it." - Tom Lehrer |
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keith
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:58 am Post subject:
Re: Intel strikes back with a parallel x86 design |
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On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 17:17:54 -0700, Nate Edel wrote:
| Quote: | In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips keith <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote:
Oh come on - CGA? Most folks got a Hercules monochrome card for business
use from what I saw... until EGA came along.
I don't know where some of my posts have gone....
Yes, CGA. There was no "Hercules" when the PC came out.
There was, however, MDA (no graphics, text only). Most of the
first-generation PCs I saw had those, rather than CGA, and my impression was
that they were a concurrent part of the original release.
|
The monochrome display/adapter wasn't at issue. Both the monochrome and
color-graphics adapters and the associated displays were indeed announced
and shipped with the first 5150s. As I've said many times, I have a
"first day order" 5150 with both adapters and an original monochrome
monitor (bought the color display with the PCjr ;-).
--
Keith |
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