Lets rewrite history!! I was under the impression that IBM brought
the computer to mainstream America...
Well, yes, and no. It perhaps depends on what you call mainstream.
IBM did not really conceive the PC. It owes its very beginnings in
the PC market, and
most of its initial success, to BOTH Apple and
Microsoft (and the pioneers before them). Secondly, Apple and MS
have been in bed together a lot more than people realise today, and
each owes the other a helluva lot for its very existence today.
Here's a potted history for those too young to remember (or who
have chosen to forget). I offer it as a (hopefully welcome) change
from the flame war that's raging here:
1971:
Xerox set up the Palo Alto Research Centre as a pure think tank. By
1973(!!) its people had come up with the GUI, the mouse, the
WYSIWYG screen, Ethernet, and the foundations of object oriented
programming. But the personal computer hadn't yet been conceived
and Xerox's target platform was mainframe. Also, the head office
managers and bean counters (none of whom really knew much about the
PARC project), couldn't see the point as they were only interested
in copiers. And the whole GUI concept was eventually given to Apple
on a plate.
1975:
The original "personal computer" was invented by Ed Roberts who,
BTW, got out of the whole melée 3 or 4 years later and retrained as
a doctor. It was the Altair, and it was essentially a hobbyist's
machine.
Improved designs followed, by Apple, Radio Shack, Texas Instruments
and others.
During this era, the fledgling Microsoft did quite well, thank you,
flogging languages to everyone -- chiefly its derivation of BASIC
for this class of computer (by Bill Gates and Paul Allen). Its
interest in OSes only came much later, and apps later still.
1977:
The Apple II was launched, and was an immediate hit. But it
remained a geek-only machine until late 1979. Again, the success
was both MS's and Apple's -- MS had the language, Apple had a
nicely engineered box to run it on.
1979 - October:
Visicalc appeared, ex Harvard, at the hands of Dave Bricklin
(design) and Bob Frankston (code). It was the very first
"spreadsheet" (although the actual term was coined much later), and
it was designed to make use of the Apple II which had already been
selling like hot cakes. Visicalc caused an accounting revolution,
with statisticians and engineers also recognising its potential.
I'm not going to debate the meaning of "mainstream". But by the
start of the eighties the Apple II's success, given a huge boost by
Visicalc, had already turned personal computing into a $billion
industry. And
that alone is what got IBM's attention. Its prime
interest was still in mainframes, but it couldn't help but notice
what was going on.
1980-81:
IBM wanted a package from MS containing BASIC and an OS (which it
wrongly assumed MS had in its arsenal). MS did some frantic running
around and ended up buying an OS from Seattle Computer Products for
$50k. That OS was QDOS, which was just a thinly disguised version
of CP/M, and it became in turn PC-DOS. MS sold the package to IBM
at a modest profit for a flat fee
with no ties . Its master stroke
was in recognising that IBM's open architecture hardware would be
copied, and looked to the future in licensing the same OS to the
inevitable clone manufacturers, initially at $50 per PC.
CP/M, by the way, the first true OS for personal computing, was
designed by the late Gary Kildall who also founded Digital
Research. His vision was to benefit the world -- not to own or sell
licences to it -- and he did not patent CP/M. Here's a link for
those interested:
http://www.ddj.com/articles/1997/9775/9775b/9775b.htm
1981 - August:
The IBM Acorn was launched. It was successful because of IBM's
marketing clout, especially because it was able to use its
corporate image (from mainframes) as credentials for the new
consumer product. And because it also had Lotus 1-2-3 which removed
users' dependence on Visicalc.
The IBM PC used largely off-the-shelf electronics, the only chip it
actually owned being the BIOS. Compaq duly reverse engineered the
BIOS, a zillion others did likewise; Gates & Co. cheerfully
licensed their OS -- which they still owned -- to everyone as
MS-DOS, and went on their way into history.
1982:
MS commenced development work on
applications for Apple's GUI
project which was to founder as the Lisa (too costly) and succeed
as the Macintosh in 1984.
I.e. Microsoft cut its teeth on the Mac as far as apps are
concerned, long before it had much interest in them for the PC
platform.
1984:
The Mac was launched and aroused much interest but was still $1000
dearer than the IBM PC. It needed exclusive software to sell it,
just as Visicalc had done for the Apple II. It found this in Adobe
(ex Xerox personnel and an Apple shareholding) and started the
publishing revolution, not least via the birth of the laser printer
(the Xerox connection).
It was at about this time that MS started to get serious about
ruling the world, building on its OS licence foothold, and
ostensibly left Apple to go its own way as a DTP and imaging
specialist. Although Apple had not invented the GUI, it brought it
to maturity. I don't think there's much argument these days about
MS's appropriation of the GUI from Apple once it found wide
acceptance.
1990:
IBM eschewed the idea of an exclusive Windows deal with MS, and
effectively sealed its own fate in the PC market.
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The split we have today is entirely due to the human impossibility
that two huge egos -- Steve Jobs and Bill Gates -- could ever
coexist. I use both platforms; I don't take sides, and I've had
plenty of reason to be bloody annoyed with the quirks of each. It's
mind boggling to think what could have been achieved by now through
open cooperation -- even amalgamation -- between the two camps.
Mike F
