Dell reflects on 25 years of PCs

[NS]

Dell reflects on 25 years of PCs

I don't know this should be in the off topic forum or general news forum...! Pls move to the appropriate forum...! Thankzzzz...!

[pianowizard]

So he is using a Precision 690 workstation, but I wonder what laptop(s) he uses. It would be funny if he uses a Thinkpad LOL!

[BillMorrow]

CNET asks: "Can you sense what the world might be like if that hadn't happened, if IBM had maintained very tight control of that device?"

Dell answers: "Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I mean, that was clearly a big factor because what it developed was an ecosystem which became and is still today incredibly important in the evolution of computing, not only in the personal computer sense, but even in the enterprise. Before that time you actually had all sorts of proprietary or semi-proprietary PCs, and the cry out from the community of users was, "Hey, how do we get a standard so that we can develop applications one time and they work on any kind of device?"

what he fails to add is that IBM realized that they had made a serious error in judgement when they made the arcitecture "open"..
(not to mention giving Bill Gates the keys to the kingdom by handing him DOS)
IBM tried to reverse that with what they called microchannel on all IBM PC's..
it failed because pandora was out of her box..
and IBM had lost control of the arcitecture..

Dell also fails to mention that the very first microcomputers of the time, called S-100 buss systems and other titles, WERE open arcitecture and there were hundreds of manufacturers making add in boards, motherboards (aka backplanes) and so forth..
some of whom (like george morrow of thinkertoys and morrow designs) made landmark hardware..
(George designed the Osborne 1, the first transportable computer and Zilog, who made a faster cpu than the then current 1.8mhz 8080, called the Z-80 and which was plug compatible with the 8080 spawned a spinoff that made the Gavilan portable with a 4 line display in a clamshell design like laptops today)
ALL of which ran the open (more or less no matter what gary kildahl said) OS called CP/M..
Then there was Cromemco who ultimately made a Z80 powered UNIX machine running on the S-100 buss..

What Dell fails to say (i DO need to finish reading his interview though) is that he, like Gates, just plain got lucky..

there were MANY others (Processor Tech, Computerland, Kentucky Fried Computers (later NorthStar Computers to name a few) who had the same opportunities and grabbed on, but failed for one reason or another..

Gates made it because he had the standardization thing going..
also Gates seems to have a "Robber Baron" mentality wherein he used his monopoly on MS DOS to leverage his way to where he is, now..

I have no idea how Dell made it but its obvious there is a place for the Yugo of computers in the world..
i can say one positive thing about DELL and that is they seem to choose (so far) to put their label on good displays..

h/p..? i'll leave h/p for a later diatribe on lost opportunity..

and i can tell you for sure that computational ability will get smaller, faster and more power efficient to the point that we will all, in time, hopefully only if we WANT to do so, walk around, connected to the internet, with a device that you can implant under the skin behind your right ear..
and powered off your body heat..

-30-