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> Man, that wasn't minimalism, _the computers really were small._ Yes, they were. But it was more than that. The machines were very diverse. Several very di

> Man, that wasn't minimalism, _the computers really were small._ Yes, they were. But it was more than that. The machines were very diverse. Several very different video card options were all in wide use and to make them work efficiently meant low level frame buffer work. Pointers were rare and weird, and again, diverse; bus mice, serial mice and other stuff. Writing a GUI compatible with all the permutations of PC hardware while being simultaneously efficient enough to run from floppies was possible with difficulty, but what value would it have provided? These were 16 bit machines with either no or extremely limited (286) MMUs; just how many processes were you going to be multitasking with your 512K of MMU-less RAM? DOS was just a program loader, and being just a program loader it was perfectly suited to the PC market. You bought a system with the 'adapter' cards you needed, booted DOS and let some program take over the system, be that Word Perfect, Paradox, Lotus 123 or whatever. That was the real, day to day use case for the PC. An advanced user with a 'fast' disk could bounce between programs in a few seconds and that was entirely sufficient for the vast bulk of PC users. It's also not dissimilar to the contemporary phone/tablet use case. And I don't remember anyone getting too hung up on the C:> prompt. They either acquired the clues needed to run a few commands or had someone make a .BAT file to kick off their program. There were certainly contemporaries with compelling UIs, but they invariably cost more and had a vastly smaller catalog of software.

icedchai 8y ago
Cost more? Not really. The Amiga and Atari ST cost much less and were more capable than contemporary late 80's PCs. Less software is definitely true.
- topspin 8y ago
  Yes really. The clone market made PCs very cheap. Certainly a lot cheaper than anything 'Amiga.' Atari ST had poor expansion; you could get a clone PC with 8 expansion slots for the same price, plug in whatever you needed, leave out whatever you didn't. The market spoke.
  - icedchai 8y ago
    Cheap, but not capable. You should price out an Amiga 500 and an equivalent 286 PC (VGA, SoundBlaster, etc.)
    - djur 8y ago
      There were a lot of business users with no interest in the Amiga's A/V features, though. That was the strength and weakness of the PC platform -- it was adaptable for a lot of different use cases, in exchange for being worse at most of them than more specialized (or more expensive) platforms.
      - orionblastar 8y ago
        The Amiga 2000 series had ISA slots and IBM bridgecards to run DOS and Windows on the Amiga. Commodore also had the PC Colt series PC compatible systems cheaper than IBM and Compaq etc. The Commodore name and reputation of selling C64s in toy stores made businesses not see the Amiga seriously. There also was that Amax Mac emulator for the Amiga as it used the same CPU as the Mac. But all people could see was the AV part not the other parts.
        icedchai 8y ago
        Don't forget Commodore's marketing was so terrible, they were lucky if anyone saw the Amiga at all! The only reason I knew about was a fellow BBSer convinced me it was a much better deal than anything Apple was producing at the time.
        orionblastar 8y ago
        Commodore nickle and dimed marketing in the USA. Computer stores blackballed Commodore products because the VIC20 and C64 sold in toy stores.
    - orionblastar 8y ago
      By the time the VGA and Soundblaster came out as affordable (the early 1990s) the Amiga 500 sold for $299 and was replaced with the Amiga 600. Commodore was hit hard by PC cloners but could mass produce their computers cheap. About 1/3 rd the price of the Macintosh at least so did the Atari ST series. A 286 was not as powerful as a 68000 with the coprocessors.
- orionblastar 8y ago
  I had the PC Transformer 1020 5.25 inch floppy drive and DOS emulator with my Amiga 1000 in 1985. It was cheaper than a monochrome PC and I also got a 1200 baud modem.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  I grew up on Ataris. When the platform died, I ended up on a Microsoft PC, and definitely felt like I had regressed.
  - hotcrossbunny 8y ago
    Had the same experience
  - icedchai 8y ago
    Atari and Amiga were about 5 years ahead of the PC. By 1996 or so, it was over. It's sad to think about what these platforms could've become with better financing and management. MacOS was crap back then, too.
genpfault 8y ago
> Pointers were ... weird noooo, why did you make me remember real mode[1]!? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_pointer#In_16-bit_x86 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_pointer#In_16-bit_x86
- monocasa 8y ago
  I think they're talking about mice, trackballs, etc.
Shikadi 8y ago
>DOS was just a program loader DOS also provided a little bit of an abstraction layer with its system calls, and some utilities. I just wanted to make the distinction in case any readers took you literally
- stevekemp 8y ago
  Also although there a lot of RAM, and DOS didn't provide any real "multitasking" you got a fair simulation of such things via a variety of TSR programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate_and_stay_resident_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate_and_stay_resident_pr...
MrRadar 8y ago
> These were 16 bit machines with either no or extremely limited (286) MMUs; just how many processes were you going to be multitasking with your 512K of MMU-less RAM? It's frankly amazing that Microsoft ever managed to get Windows to run on 5150-class machines (which were allowed to have as little as 256 KiB of RAM per the minimum requirements). While the Macintosh had half that much RAM (128 KiB) it had the luxury of storing most of its system and graphics code in ROM. On the PC all the code for Windows had to reside in memory, with an elaborate system to swap code in and out of RAM as needed with absolutely no hardware memory management support. Raymond Chen's Old New Thing blog has some interesting reading on the topic of 16-bit Windows memory management: 1. GlobalAlloc vs LocalAlloc: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041101-00/?p=37433/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041101-00/?p=... 1a. 4-part series on the history of GlobalAlloc: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041104-00/?p=37393 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041104-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041105-00/?p=37383 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041105-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041108-00/?p=37363 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041108-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041109-00/?p=37353 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041109-00/?p=... 2. Walking the stack in Win16: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=11203/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=... 3. Fixing up pointers to discarded code segments: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=7303/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=... 4. MakeProcInstance: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080207-00/?p=23533/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080207-00/?p=... 5. 16-bit x86 calling conventions: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040102-00/?p=41213/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040102-00/?p=... (Note that 16-bit Windows used the Pascal calling convention to save 3 bytes per function call, which according to a comment on that blog post allowed it to be shipped on one fewer floppy disk compared to the C calling convention.)
- topspin 8y ago
  > (which were allowed to have as little as 256 KiB of RAM per the minimum requirements). That's the L2 cache of an Ivy Bridge CPU. I remember finding an old laptop that I somehow ended up with in some box: Windows 3.1 with a TCP stack in 8 MiB of RAM. That's the L3 cache of an Ivy Bridge CPU.

icedchai 8y ago

Cost more? Not really. The Amiga and Atari ST cost much less and were more capable than contemporary late 80's PCs. Less software is definitely true.

topspin 8y ago
Yes really. The clone market made PCs very cheap. Certainly a lot cheaper than anything 'Amiga.' Atari ST had poor expansion; you could get a clone PC with 8 expansion slots for the same price, plug in whatever you needed, leave out whatever you didn't. The market spoke.
- icedchai 8y ago
  Cheap, but not capable. You should price out an Amiga 500 and an equivalent 286 PC (VGA, SoundBlaster, etc.)
  - djur 8y ago
    There were a lot of business users with no interest in the Amiga's A/V features, though. That was the strength and weakness of the PC platform -- it was adaptable for a lot of different use cases, in exchange for being worse at most of them than more specialized (or more expensive) platforms.
    - orionblastar 8y ago
      The Amiga 2000 series had ISA slots and IBM bridgecards to run DOS and Windows on the Amiga. Commodore also had the PC Colt series PC compatible systems cheaper than IBM and Compaq etc. The Commodore name and reputation of selling C64s in toy stores made businesses not see the Amiga seriously. There also was that Amax Mac emulator for the Amiga as it used the same CPU as the Mac. But all people could see was the AV part not the other parts.
      - icedchai 8y ago
        Don't forget Commodore's marketing was so terrible, they were lucky if anyone saw the Amiga at all! The only reason I knew about was a fellow BBSer convinced me it was a much better deal than anything Apple was producing at the time.
        orionblastar 8y ago
        Commodore nickle and dimed marketing in the USA. Computer stores blackballed Commodore products because the VIC20 and C64 sold in toy stores.
  - orionblastar 8y ago
    By the time the VGA and Soundblaster came out as affordable (the early 1990s) the Amiga 500 sold for $299 and was replaced with the Amiga 600. Commodore was hit hard by PC cloners but could mass produce their computers cheap. About 1/3 rd the price of the Macintosh at least so did the Atari ST series. A 286 was not as powerful as a 68000 with the coprocessors.
orionblastar 8y ago
I had the PC Transformer 1020 5.25 inch floppy drive and DOS emulator with my Amiga 1000 in 1985. It was cheaper than a monochrome PC and I also got a 1200 baud modem.
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
I grew up on Ataris. When the platform died, I ended up on a Microsoft PC, and definitely felt like I had regressed.
- hotcrossbunny 8y ago
  Had the same experience
- icedchai 8y ago
  Atari and Amiga were about 5 years ahead of the PC. By 1996 or so, it was over. It's sad to think about what these platforms could've become with better financing and management. MacOS was crap back then, too.

genpfault 8y ago

> Pointers were ... weird noooo, why did you make me remember real mode[1]!? [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_pointer#In_16-bit_x86 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_pointer#In_16-bit_x86

monocasa 8y ago
I think they're talking about mice, trackballs, etc.

Shikadi 8y ago

>DOS was just a program loader DOS also provided a little bit of an abstraction layer with its system calls, and some utilities. I just wanted to make the distinction in case any readers took you literally

stevekemp 8y ago
Also although there a lot of RAM, and DOS didn't provide any real "multitasking" you got a fair simulation of such things via a variety of TSR programs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate_and_stay_resident_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate_and_stay_resident_pr...

MrRadar 8y ago

> These were 16 bit machines with either no or extremely limited (286) MMUs; just how many processes were you going to be multitasking with your 512K of MMU-less RAM? It's frankly amazing that Microsoft ever managed to get Windows to run on 5150-class machines (which were allowed to have as little as 256 KiB of RAM per the minimum requirements). While the Macintosh had half that much RAM (128 KiB) it had the luxury of storing most of its system and graphics code in ROM. On the PC all the code for Windows had to reside in memory, with an elaborate system to swap code in and out of RAM as needed with absolutely no hardware memory management support. Raymond Chen's Old New Thing blog has some interesting reading on the topic of 16-bit Windows memory management: 1. GlobalAlloc vs LocalAlloc: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041101-00/?p=37433/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041101-00/?p=... 1a. 4-part series on the history of GlobalAlloc: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041104-00/?p=37393 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041104-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041105-00/?p=37383 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041105-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041108-00/?p=37363 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041108-00/?p=... https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041109-00/?p=37353 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20041109-00/?p=... 2. Walking the stack in Win16: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=11203/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110316-00/?p=... 3. Fixing up pointers to discarded code segments: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=7303/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120622-00/?p=... 4. MakeProcInstance: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080207-00/?p=23533/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20080207-00/?p=... 5. 16-bit x86 calling conventions: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040102-00/?p=41213/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040102-00/?p=... (Note that 16-bit Windows used the Pascal calling convention to save 3 bytes per function call, which according to a comment on that blog post allowed it to be shipped on one fewer floppy disk compared to the C calling convention.)

topspin 8y ago
> (which were allowed to have as little as 256 KiB of RAM per the minimum requirements). That's the L2 cache of an Ivy Bridge CPU. I remember finding an old laptop that I somehow ended up with in some box: Windows 3.1 with a TCP stack in 8 MiB of RAM. That's the L3 cache of an Ivy Bridge CPU.