On Sat, 10 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> A lot happened in the early part of '81, i.e.
VERY TRUE. Those were busy days. My "old-timer's" may make me forgetful
of many things, but I clearly remember the start of the PC.
> ><The IBM entry into the PC market was in mid-1981,
The IBM PC was released on August 11, 1981.
On 8/11/1981, without yet knowing anything about the details of the new
machine, I said, "Within 5 years, there are going to be only three
types of computers: IBMs, imitations of IBMs, and a small corner of niche
machines."
Several friends countered, "But xxxxxx is so much better than the IBM PC."
I replied, "Do you really think that the quality of the machine is a
controlling factor?"
> The model 1 was quite common, but the model 1 was in too many pieces to be
> of much interest to most folks. What's more, it was pretty weak-kneed. The
> model 3 held out hope, though that was later dashed when the model 3 turned
> out to be not much better.
Yeah, I can agree. I had bolted the CPU and EI of one of my Model I's to
a piece of plywood. The one piece model 3 had some appeal, particularly
if you bolted HANDLES onto the case, even if it wasn't much more than
better packaging of the 1.
BTW, the model 1 is well remembered as starting at $599 with 4K, monitor,
and cassette. But virtually nobody knew that it was also available for
$399 without the monitor and cassette. I struggled long and hard with
that decision, until one of the RS store managers agreed to be willing to
special order a "replacement" monitor for me for $200 if I were to be
unsuccessful in interfacing one of my CCTV monitors. Fortunately (since I
didn't/don't) have Allison's technical expertise, it turned out to need
nothing more than cabling.
> >the PC wasn't an impact until 82 maybe 83. Memories and events seem to
> >get compressed or expanded. I's even say the PC was not a serious
> >contender till mid 83.
It hadn't ACHIEVED its contender status, but there were a FEW of us who
decided eqarly on that it represented the end of the way things were.
OT_ Roseanne Barr: "...first day of the rest of your life. Who knew it
would be such a long bad day?"
> The initial impact of the PC was to get people to stop buying non-PC's for
> their businesses.
For some. For some others, the existence of the PC "legitimized the
concept" of "using one of those toys" in business. Prior to that, people
had laughed at the database system that I had set up for an auto repair
shop on a TRS-80 model 1. The PC, and satisfactory results, made it a
locally popular system.
> They were extremely costly at first, and didn't have a
> few serious problems worked out. People had to mortgage their houses to buy
> one (a basic PC on the gray-market cost nearly $2k).
I don't know when the gray-market started in your area. Around here, the
base PC was $1361 from IBM or from their "OFFICIAL" authorized
Computerland distributors. But there was close to a six month backlog,
and the sales people were NOT enthusiastic about people buying base
machines! It took me from 8/11/1981 until February 1982 to get one.
(That was for 16K (sockets for another 48K) MB, case, PS, keyboard, BASIC
manual, and "Guide to Operations". CGA board at ~$300 was the cheapest
video, since it had composite video for aftermarket (Apple :-?) monitors;
whereas nobody but IBM yet had monitors readily available compatible with
MDP. The FDC was anothr ~$300. Serial, parallel, PC-DOS, MASM, and the
"Technical Reference Manual" were the only other things that you had to go
to IBM for. By middle '82?, multifunction cards were becoming available.
(And an ECC memory card! from Boulder Creek Systems)
BTW, MOST of us thought that CP/M-86 would push PC-DOS out ("as soon as it
comes out")! CP/M-86 was significantly delayed. By the time that it
showed up, and the higher price for it than PC-DOS, PC-DOS was barely
affected by its presence. Shows how much to believe "experts"!
--
Fred Cisin cisin_at_xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
Received on Sun Apr 11 1999 - 12:01:28 BST