3 ms·

OK, lets assume Commodore's chips would have become the intel equivalent, and an open standard. They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. It

by harel 9y ago

OK, lets assume Commodore's chips would have become the intel equivalent, and an open standard. They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. It's not far fetched, just mismanaged. They could have done it and gone there but they didn't have the vision. And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining or have regrets. I enjoy my Linux laptop and I couldn't care less if it's an intel chip or commodore that drives it. But I do know that one of them triggered excitement and one is just "a chip". Maybe it's my age, maybe its nostalgic memories of an era. I don't know... (can you run linux on commodore??? now that would be something...)

bitwize 9y ago
> OK, lets assume Commodore's chips would have become the intel equivalent, and an open standard. They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. Yes and today we might be talking about boring 65xx vs. exotic, sexy 8086. > They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. It's not far fetched, just mismanaged. They could have done it and gone there but they didn't have the vision. IBM didn't have the vision either. They left that to Dell, Compaq, etc. The PC evolved quite by accident, and once IBM realized what they had unleashed -- a computer revolution in business and eventually the home that was OUT of their control -- they struggled to try to put the genie back in the bottle with the PS/2 line. > But I do know that one of them triggered excitement and one is just "a chip". Says you, who never harnessed the on-chip timers of the 80186 to drive PWM sound through the beeper! > (can you run linux on commodore??? now that would be something...) You can run LUnix, a cut down Unix workalike. And Tandy Color Computers, based on a 6502 relative the 6809, could run a Unix workalike called OS-9...
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  IBM did have the vision - or at least one small division in IBM did. They set out to make a (relatively) affordable (relatively) high performance business computer. And they succeeded. Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and the rest took the idea and ran with it. But it wouldn't have happened without IBM. Of course the PC was a technological cripple compared to Commodore hardware - somewhat compared to the C64, and very much so compared to the Amiga. Unfortunately that's not the point. Businesses wanted packaged systems with software, not games with sound and sprites. That's what IBM set out to provide, and that's what they provided. (In spite of themselves - but even so.) The competition wasn't from Commodore - the PET was considered a risky toy - but from S100 systems at one end, and massively more expensive DEC/DG/IBM minicomputers at the other. The high prices of the latter and limited performance of the former made the PC look like a bargain to corporates, even though its price looked ridiculous to consumers.
  - bitwize 9y ago
    But the PC was open quite by accident, and that enabled cloners to rise up, and that allowed the PC platform to get inside the OODA loop of Commodore, Atari, and Apple. As great as those machines were in the early days, betting the whole company on coming up with a perfect cinnamon roll of a whole-system design can't keep up when the market has many companies making video hardware, companies making sound hardware, companies making mobos, companies making memory, and companies plugging them all together and they Just Work. Compatible systems with superior specs to the 5150, and lower prices, emerged in almost negligible time after the 5150's release, and it was only a matter of time before even the gap with the mighty Amiga would be closed. This is why the engineers at SGI ended up making video cards for PCs. If Commodore had had the best management team in the world, eventually they would have ended up primarily producing PC compatibles and/or PC preripherals, because by the early 90s the open ISA (and later PCI) architecture and the reasonable-for-the-time license terms of DOS became VERY convenient Schelling points for the entire industry.

by harel 9y ago

bitwize 9y ago

> OK, lets assume Commodore's chips would have become the intel equivalent, and an open standard. They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. Yes and today we might be talking about boring 65xx vs. exotic, sexy 8086. > They could have easily been the PC if they went the same way. It's not far fetched, just mismanaged. They could have done it and gone there but they didn't have the vision. IBM didn't have the vision either. They left that to Dell, Compaq, etc. The PC evolved quite by accident, and once IBM realized what they had unleashed -- a computer revolution in business and eventually the home that was OUT of their control -- they struggled to try to put the genie back in the bottle with the PS/2 line. > But I do know that one of them triggered excitement and one is just "a chip". Says you, who never harnessed the on-chip timers of the 80186 to drive PWM sound through the beeper! > (can you run linux on commodore??? now that would be something...) You can run LUnix, a cut down Unix workalike. And Tandy Color Computers, based on a 6502 relative the 6809, could run a Unix workalike called OS-9...

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
IBM did have the vision - or at least one small division in IBM did. They set out to make a (relatively) affordable (relatively) high performance business computer. And they succeeded. Compaq, Dell, Gateway, and the rest took the idea and ran with it. But it wouldn't have happened without IBM. Of course the PC was a technological cripple compared to Commodore hardware - somewhat compared to the C64, and very much so compared to the Amiga. Unfortunately that's not the point. Businesses wanted packaged systems with software, not games with sound and sprites. That's what IBM set out to provide, and that's what they provided. (In spite of themselves - but even so.) The competition wasn't from Commodore - the PET was considered a risky toy - but from S100 systems at one end, and massively more expensive DEC/DG/IBM minicomputers at the other. The high prices of the latter and limited performance of the former made the PC look like a bargain to corporates, even though its price looked ridiculous to consumers.
- bitwize 9y ago
  But the PC was open quite by accident, and that enabled cloners to rise up, and that allowed the PC platform to get inside the OODA loop of Commodore, Atari, and Apple. As great as those machines were in the early days, betting the whole company on coming up with a perfect cinnamon roll of a whole-system design can't keep up when the market has many companies making video hardware, companies making sound hardware, companies making mobos, companies making memory, and companies plugging them all together and they Just Work. Compatible systems with superior specs to the 5150, and lower prices, emerged in almost negligible time after the 5150's release, and it was only a matter of time before even the gap with the mighty Amiga would be closed. This is why the engineers at SGI ended up making video cards for PCs. If Commodore had had the best management team in the world, eventually they would have ended up primarily producing PC compatibles and/or PC preripherals, because by the early 90s the open ISA (and later PCI) architecture and the reasonable-for-the-time license terms of DOS became VERY convenient Schelling points for the entire industry.