4 ms·
Right - and to get an idea of how behind the times they were, in the west CP/M office computers had an extinction level event occur in 1981 that some people mig
by buescher 5y ago
Right - and to get an idea of how behind the times they were, in the west CP/M office computers had an extinction level event occur in 1981 that some people might remember. The KC models were introduced in 1984, a year that saw the introduction of another notable personal computer system.
- flohofwoe 5y agoYes of course the GDR electronics industry was behind the US, but so were most Western countries. At the beginning of the 70s, Eastern Germany didn't have chip manufacturing capabilities at all, and at the end of the decade it was able to manufacture Z80 clones along with all other chips needed to build Z80-based computers, and two years later 16-bit CPUs (the Z8000 clone U8000). What CPUs did (for instance) Western Germany build at that time? ;)
- buescher 5y agoCompare to Japan, then.
- flohofwoe 5y agoJapan had a much better starting position: it was built up by the USA after WW2 similar to the Western European countries, while Eastern Germany was looted by the Soviet Union. Japan had access to the free market, while Eastern Germany had to deal with trade restrictions (especially for "sensitive" technology like computers), and finally Japan had a nearly 10x bigger population than Eastern Germany.
- buescher 5y agoYeah, looting has consequences. The UK did OK - Acorn launched the Archimedes in 1987 (without a parade) - but the rest of Western Europe was never really a personal computer or IC design powerhouse either. Commodore did some assembly in Germany, and I remember being appalled by the large display of obviously horrible Thomson home computers at a department store in Germany in the mid-eighties. The store's buyer must have been out of his or her mind to stock them, or just entranced by the light pen, but apparently they were big in France.
- helge9210 5y ago> while Eastern Germany was looted by the Soviet Union This. All manufacturing capability of USSR was based on equipment looted from Eastern Germany.
- thriftwy 5y agoI had an answer to you but I deleted it, your claim is just too ridiculous. If "all" of USSR capacity were stolen from the East Germany, how did USSR managed to produce all the tanks and planes which caused East Germany to start its sad communist existence?
- sudosysgen 5y agoThe USSR massively outproduced all of the Reich, let alone Germany, much less East Germany. What they did get from East Germany was a lot of R&D, and ok terms of productivity per capita yes there was some "looting".
- buescher 5y agoIt's lunchtime so I googled - Siemens did have a collaboration with Intel and built processors at least through the 286 in Europe - I found a picture of one marked "Austria". This would have been completely unremarkable at the time, nothing to stake national pride on. Given the cultural and business style differences between Intel and Siemens, that process could have possibly been harder than ripping off the masks and pirating the chip! As an aside in that vein, it looks like Intel and Siemens caught a real cold working together on the project that became the i960. One of the pitfalls of advanced development is you can go wrong...