Subj : Re: Today in History - 1981
To   : Mike Powell
From : Dave Drum
Date : Sun Aug 13 2023 07:10 am

-=> Mike Powell wrote to DAVE DRUM <=-

 > They went to Microsoft for the operating system (QDOS, renamed PC-DOS
 > and later sold by Microsoft as MS-DOS) and to Intel +< for its 8088
 > processor. They chose an existing monitor from IBM Japan and a
 > dot-matrix printer by Epson. Only the keyboard and the system unit
 > itself were new designs from IBM. Even more shocking at the time, the
 > team opted to make the IBM PC an "open architecture" product, and
 > published a technical reference of the systemgCOs circuit designs and
 > software source codes. With this information, other companies could
 > develop software and build peripheral components.

 MP> It is even more shocking in hindsight considering that they would later
 MP> try to make it more difficult to use non-IBM parts on their machines.

Well, the guys who wrote the manuals and sneaked them past the bean
counters weren't the management pirates who woke up and realised that
they might lose a few pfennigs to the cloners. Sorta like Slick Willie 
Gates gritting his teeth when some bright sparks cloned MS-DOS.

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