Hello Derek,
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:57:40 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
"gateway" programming platform.
In my world, the "real" programmers were working on IBM mainframes and
the like. The new-fangled "mini"-computers (Olivetti, Xerox, Sun) were
starting to make their way in to commercial operations and these were
seen as under-achieving toys by the "real" programmers.
I was just about to recommend the IBM Model-23
mini-computer/word-processor to my bosses when news of the IBM PC
broke. I was given a preview and demonstration of the new PC when I
visited the IBM offices about 3-months before the official release by
the very enthusiastic, and aptly named, "Entry Systems Division".
The price/performance of the PC eradicated the mini-computer market
overnight. Sure it had technical limitations but the release of
computing to the masses swamped those limitations. One now no longer
needed "real" programmers to get some actual work done and it was damn
cheap by comparison.
The Unix/PC divide was yet to happen. The 16-bit PC enabled
non-specialist people whereas Unix was seen, if acknowledged at all,
as the domain of arcane geeks. Unix was not practical and PC-DOS was;
Unix was academic and PC-DOS was business - end of story.
Times have changed, of course.
Yes... that's a good historical description about the significance of the
early years of 16-bit PC. I think that's what Walter was describing too...
one of the problems of offering different viewpoints is that sometimes two
people are describing there experience within different periods of computer
history.
Anyway, there is significance in the fact that the general aura started to
change in the late 80's and 90's... I guess those of us who had not been
involved in the early years of the PC missed the point about how accessible
PC's had become (we took it for granted). Although, some of us (young hobbiests
in contrast to business developers) were being introduced to the Atari ST,
Apple II, Amiga, and Commodore 64 instead. When we finally jumped onto the
PC platform as our first big upgrade from the geeky computers, we realized
that -- contrary to what we were used to from computers like the C64 and
Amiga -- the PC was not being pushed to the limits. It's potential was being
wasted! I think that was our general impression, and this was a great evil
for people that were used to getting all the machine could give them. And
as the years went on, we were still stuck in 16 bit while 32-bit systems
had been around for years: 386,486, Pentium, etc.
It's funny how easily we get spoiled by technology such that we forget how
things once were. Later generations continue act in similar ignorance.
This is one reason I think it's so important study history.
-JJR
