Famous quotes(4 drives on a PC) (was:: Merced - and the ol' Unix story (was Re: OT, but info needed: RAM uprade))

From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de>
Date: Mon Jan 18 09:30:57 1999

> | *Why we are limited to 2 floppy drives in DOS

> The same reason there are absurd memory limitations, etc.

> Someone wasn't thinking very far ahead.

> ``Why would anyone *ever* need more than [amount] [thing]?''

> The problem was that the people doing the PC development
> weren't looking at micros as real computers. They saw
> them as little more than toys - they just happened to be
> toys you could sell to companies to put on the desktop.

Nice, and sounds good, but often (as here found) just a
modern, urban legend - the IBM twist was just a genius
thing to keep part storage and maintainance costs low -
with the twisted cable you _can't_ install a wrong drive
as add on, and you _don't_ need to check any jumper or
what ever (supposed the drive is factory jumpered to #1)

Solutions of that kind are common in all times and are
strictly production/maintanance related and _not_ short-
sighted - The developers _did_ see a need for more drives,
so they offered the possibility to add more than one controller
by default.

You just can't blame anything on one quote.

Gruss
H.

--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
Received on Mon Jan 18 1999 - 09:30:57 GMT

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