[Gllug] Barbican website - accessibility issues

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Tue, 2002-11-12 at 20:42, Jason Clifford wrote:
> On 12 Nov 2002, Mike Brodbelt wrote:
> 
> > Your costings are valid today, but remember that whatever OS you use,
> > you're paying for the hardware. It was Microsoft who commoditized the PC
> 
> No, actually it was IBM who did that. MS just bought an OS for the 
> platform and marketed it agressively.

IBM would never have allowed MS to retain contro of the OS if they'd
realised the PC was going to take off the way it did.
 
> > to the extent that IBM clones became the standard, and economies of
> > scale kicked in to allow PC's to become affordable to Joe Average.
> > Remember that software started out free - it came with your hardware,
> > which was proprietary and wincingly expensive.
> 
> Initially the software was no cheaper. While you usually received a copy 
> of DOS with your PC you still had to buy any applications you 
> wanted/needed and DOS included no apps other than a basic text editor.
> What made PCs and DOS a success was Lotus 123.

Indeed. Lotus would work on anything where DOS ran though, again
liberating the purchaser to choose from many suppliers for the hardware.
You didn't have to buy your PC from IBM, but you did (effectively, I do
know about DR DOS and similar) have to buy Microsoft's OS.
 
> > IBM, in their rush to get a PC to market, used an off the shelf set of
> > components, with the exception of the BIOS. Compaq cloned the BIOS, and
> > DOS would run on anyone's PC clone. Microsoft provided a layer of
> > abstraction above the hardware that allowed PC's to become cheap
> > commodities. 
> 
> The OS is always an abstraction layer. PCs became cheap not because of 
> this but rather because IBM did not demand enormous licensing fees to use 
> the design and other companies such as Compaq jumped on board.

IBM had no option to demand licensing fees. All the components were off
the shelf parts, except the BIOS. Compaq and other cloners went to some
leghts to clean-room reverse engineer the BIOS.
 
> Had it not been for IBMs decision and the sucess of Lotus 123 it is not at 
> all sure that the PC would have been a success.

The only decision IBM made that was important was the selection of
parts. This was mostly down to an "oh shit we're going to miss the boat,
no time to make our own" attitude. Lotus was a killer app, though I
think visicalc actually started that avalanche.
 
> > The existence of cheap clones was, IMO, a necessary
> > precursor to the free software movement gaining any real traction.
> 
> Again not true. The Free Software movement commenced long before PCs were 
> widely available and most early free software was written for mid-range 
> UNIX boxes.

Yes, and most people couln't afford mid-range UNIX boxes. It was
important to free software being an option for most users. Look at the
amount of people who hung around Minix, which was a wholly
unsatisfactory OS for real use. UNIX boxes were not available to most
people outside large companies and academia. Free software had no hope
of wider relevance until people could run a *nix OS on commodity (i.e.
cheap) hardware.
 
> The PC made Linux possible though.

And the Linux kernel was probably responsible for getting more
developers into free software than any other single thing.

Mike.


-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug