4 ms·
Perhaps the more significant "accident" of history, occurring before IBM-PCs with much memory got out there in large numbers, was all the vendors of 68000 based
by hga 11y ago
Perhaps the more significant "accident" of history, occurring before IBM-PCs with much memory got out there in large numbers, was all the vendors of 68000 based systems who didn't follow the lead of Apollo Computer and instead got a relatively cheap UNIX(TM) licence.
As PCs got more capable and more and more people were willing to program them in C---I don't remember Borland being a big player in this, in fact, it was Microsoft that produced the first really solid C compiler---the same sorts of constraints that helped birth UNIX(TM) and C were in play, until it was by and large too late to change course.
- pjmlp 11y agoMaybe I am a bit too much biased to Borland, but Microsoft MS-DOS compilers weren't that great, they were even the last MS-DOS compiler vendor to support C++. They only started to have something worth buying with the 32 bit version of Visual C++ and Borland loosing their focus, until then not really.
- ArkyBeagle 11y agoYou're correct, but before Borland 'C' ( I think to directly compete with Microsoft ) much was done in Borland Pascal. Of course, much was done after as well. I think the results of Apollo's decision speaks for itself. If something is an order of magnitude cheaper, it will propagate faster, whether it's objectively better or not.