Christopher Smith skrev:
>> Well when I first saw a PC ( clone that is ) , I thought
>> "WOW A real keyboard, good display ( Upper / Lower Case )
>> and dual floppies all in one box". 512K ram max sounded
>> like a lot of memory too. Compared to the 8 bit toy market
>> at the time Z80's,C64's,Coco's that was a lot of power.
>> From: Ben Franchuk [mailto:bfranchuk_at_jetnet.ab.ca]
>> It was the small 16 bit addressing that killed the 8 bitters.
>May have been unusual at the time. I doubt it was the first machine to have
>any of that. A VAX-11/750 with a vt-100, for instance, would have had all
>that less the dual-floppies and with a much higher maximum RAM limit ;)
But who could by a VAX? And why one terminal only? The VAX wasn't a personal
computer by any means.
Not that just anyone could buy an IBM PC in '81, but chances were, your
employer could.
>Seriously, though, some older CP/M boxes also had real keyboards, decent
>displays and dual floppies. (Some of which was optional, mind you... as were
>_any_ floppies on the PC, AFAIK, in that you bought them separately :) Also
>you could say that it was the first available 16-bit home computer
>(depending on your definition of 16-bit), but you'd be wrong... (Quick
>search says that several people believe this was the TI-99, actually, which
>also had a real keyboard, and could have had the dual floppies)
OTOH, the TI99's processor had the same addressing problems as the 8-bitters,
15-bit addressing with a 16-bit word orientation led to the same addressable
space as the 6502 and Z80 micros. Arithmetically, the TI99 was a sixteen-
bitter, but not in the common definition of sixteen bits used from the
eighties and onwards.
>Ultimately, the 32-bit systems were pretty close on its heels -- I have a
>timeline that places the PC in '82, and the Apple Lisa in '83. I don't know
>if this is correct...
The PC was AFAIK released in '81.
I wouldn't define the 68000 as a 32-bitter, only as a more elegant sixteen-
bitter.
>I have no idea how the peesee actually lasted as long as it has. There were
>several 32-bit systems on the market by 1984 or so (though, my personal
>favorite was done in '87 with the Acorn Archimedes).
None were IBM, though, and none could be easily cloned.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Received on Mon Dec 03 2001 - 18:27:00 GMT