From: jseymour@medar.com (James Seymour)
Subject: Re: Amiga 4000/Atari Falcon
Organization: Medar, Inc.     Farmington Hills, MI
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:25:24 GMT

In article <35021@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>In article <BuC71z.55I@medar.com> jseymour@medar.com (James Seymour) writes:
>
>>Now, I don't know as I'd call MS-DOS/clone systems kludges as per
>>definitions 1 & 3, but I'm certainly of the opinion that "modern"
>>DOS-boxes fit #2 perfectly.  
>
>Actually, I don't think the original PC was far from definition one.  It
>certainly looked to me as if it had been thrown together rather quickly, at 
>least from the hardware point of view.  Most other personal computers of the
>same era were much smoother, albeit slightly lower performance (yes, the 8088
>was actually a small improvement over the 6502s, 6800s, and Z-80s of the
>time, though the 68000 shortly took care of this).
>

Hmmm...  Not having been on the design team :-), but having observed
the differences between IBM products and similar clone products, I'll
make a guess that the design decisions were based more on the greatest
common denominator principal, rather than a short design cycle.

>>The IBM-PC/MS-DOS system was kinda revolutionary at the time it was
>>introduced.  
>
>Not hardly.  It was evolutionary, very conservatively so.  It was essentially
>just a bigger and better Apple II (the most popular personal computer at the
>time) with an OS that was basically CP/M (the most popular business OS for
>personal computers at the time), at least as far as the user could see.
>

Okay, so mebbe "revolutionary" was a bit strong.

>>If nothing more than for the fact that it was IBM (of all folks) that 
>>introduced the open hardware/software architecture and for the vastly 
>>improved documentation.  
>
>IBM's involvement may have been revolution from the marketing view, but that's
>about the extent of it.  That helped make the "PC" a standard, since there was
>a long standing tradition in the industry of cloning IBM hardware and getting
>away with it.

Previous to the IBM-PC, *not* in the personal computer arena.  Nobody
cloned anything.  (Well, there was, as I recall, an attempt to clone
the Apple ][, don't remember what happened with that.  Got sued into
oblivion?)

>               Plus, the PC was made with off the shelf parts anyone could get,
>and MS-DOS was a third party product, so anyone could buy the OS.

But didn't IBM publish, or make easily available, the specs for the
hardware, etc?  Didn't this make it much easier for I*Vs to create
third-party product for it?

>                                                                   Very much
>like the CP/M market, only a step backward in that true compatibility came to
>mean "identical to the PC in hardware".  CP/M systems had been moving toward
>"Z-80 powered" as the only real requirement for compatibility.

True, but what was "lost" in some aspects was gained in others: how
about floppy-disk format compatibility?  I was never able to understand
why CP/M system manufacturers couldn't get together and agree on
standard formats for at least identical floppy-drive sub-systems (i.e.:
all DSDD systems having the same format).  Or why DR didn't enforce
a standard.  Hell, Ward Christensen originally wrote "MODEM" just to
transfer files between CP/M systems cuz the disk formats were not
compatible.

BTW: DR never did get beyond the 8080 compatibility issue.  (Look what's
happened to them -- are you listening MicroSoft?  Heh heh heh)

>
>>(Try plowing through a CP/M 1.x or 2.x "users" manual sometime and you'll see 
>>what I mean!)  
>
>I don't see.  I used the CP/M manual for the C128 many times, and didn't find
>it any more cryptic than the MS-DOS manual for the C= PCs.

I'm referring to standard-issue DR docs.  (A yellow, kind of card-boardy
covered 8.5*11 thing for 1.3 and a glossy gray covered 8.5*11 thing for
2.x.)  Admittedly, the CP/M+ docs that came with my Osborne Executive
(for example) were much better.  But these came out *after* the IBM-PC.

>                                                            As for hardware
>docs, IBM gave you a really nice book on the "what" of the PC, including
>schematics, but they never produced an actual specification for the PC, XT, or
>AT buses (they did produce a MicroChannel specification).
>

No?  As I wrote above, I thot they had.  If you say not, I'll yield
to your more extensive knowledge -- after all, it's your business to
know what the competition's (been) doing.

(No flames from the seriously Amiga-only enabled about the reference
 to "competition" please.)

>>Problem is: for the sake of maintaining "compatibility" with the original 
>>(and by today's standards rather limited) hardware and software architecture, 
>>and at the same time trying to keep up with advancing technology, it's 
>>evolved into a kludge.
>
>I would agree that it's become kludgier.
>
>>I would note that CBM, IMHO, is dangerously close to following the same
>>path, for the same reasons.  And I don't like it :-(.
>
>The Amiga architecture is a zillion years ahead of the PC Clones in terms of
>what you absolutely must have for compatibility.

No argument (from what I know).  That was not my point.

>                                                  It's virtually impossible
>to change much of anything in the underlying hardware of the Clone and expect
>anything to run properly.

Uh huh - agreed.

>                           This isn't a big deal anymore, as most of these
>bits and pieces of architectural baggage are contained deep inside glue chips
>today, so this baggage doesn't cost much anymore.  
>
>From the software side, even the PC has taken occasional software hits.  The 
>Amiga has and will continue to do so, as will pretty much any other system.
>There has always been a defined interface for programmers to use that'll 
>ensure future compatibility on the Amiga.

When 2.x "broke" a bunch of software that had broken the clearly
published rules, CBM "fixed" 2.x so it wouldn't break the rule-
breakers code.  These fixes had to impose some sort of penalty
somewhere.  Kernel execution time?  If nothing else, it absorbed
engineering time that could have been better spent on new and
improved product, rather than cleaning up after a bunch of
irresponsible third-party vendors.  I know, I know, market dynamics.
But that's what I was commenting on.  How is this different from
IBM/MS not fixing/improving their respective products because they
want to maintain compatibility with the existing third-party
software base?  Most of which was poorly written (read: goes
directly to the metal.)

[ remainder of Dave's and my comments deleted]

>
>-- 
>Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"


-- 
Jim Seymour				| "If NT is the answer, it must
...uunet!medar!jseymour			|  be a really silly question"
jseymour@medar.com			|      Warner Losh
CIS: 72730,1166  GEnie: jseymour	|      Computer Power Software