3 ms·
After dealing with single-IP-owner computer infrastructures, it was pretty clear that the IBM standard was going to win as long as the industry prevented IBM fr
by Firehawke 6y ago
After dealing with single-IP-owner computer infrastructures, it was pretty clear that the IBM standard was going to win as long as the industry prevented IBM from taking control again (like they tried with the PS/2)
A lot of people didn't want a single point of failure after watching Atari and Commodore blow themselves up spectacularly.
Also, the early 90s were when the IBM market started to be commoditized enough to bring prices way down(). The self-implosion of Amiga and a bit later a near-death experience on Apple's side just combined with the relatively cheap hardware on the IBM side enough to kill off nearly every non-Wintel platform for average desktop users.
This was also the point where Computer Shopper turned into hundreds of pages of sellers offering hardware at all price points, allowing easy entry into the market for a new owner. The internet sped that up further.
- buescher 6y agoWe're talking about 1991, when Apple was pretty solid in their niche, and if you wanted to talk other more interesting computers, i.e. someone else's money: - the SGI Indigo was released - the Symbolics XL1200 was a year old, and the MacIvory III was released - the Sparcstation 2 (SunOS!) was a year old University departments were already throwing away old LMI lisp machines. The really big deal was when everyone bought a Windows 95 machine to get on the internet with AOL about five years later.