On Tue, 8 Jan 2019, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > On Tue, Jan 08, 2019 at 12:48:49PM -0600, Jim Brain wrote: >> On 1/8/2019 12:34 PM, Thom Cherryhomes wrote: >>> ...and pray that it doesn't balkanize into the hell spawn marketing >>> nightmare that was the PS/2... >> >> I implored folks to not demonize engineers. I should also note, though, >> that engineers are not above scrutiny and critique. >> >> I choose to believe, though, that the PS/2, like the Plus/4, was >> designed before the engineering team got involved, and the engineers >> just lost the fight... > > That, or PS/2 just is second-system syndrome. IBM wanted to regain control of the bus and cut out the clones. MicroChannel came along with some pretty heavy licensing fees just to make peripheral cards. I don't know that they ever licensed the MCA bus itself. The sniveling about the IBM-PC design is kind of annoying though. They were tasked with building a business computer with 100% off the shelf parts that had at least one second source. I don't think IBM /ever/ marketed the PC to the home market. If I recall correctly, the 8088 was cheaper than the 8086, so that's what they ran with. It could also be purchased from AMD. I don't know why they chose the mid-span flip on the cable end, but it did save assembly workers/integrators from having to change the drive select jumpers - they all came set to DS1. If there were 2 drives all they needed to do was insert a resistor pack into the last drive on the cable. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!Received on 2019-01-09 00:00:38
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