Apple or Sun are common comparisons, yes :) > What I'm curious about is how analogous or different is this cohesiveness to the days where vendors built the com

Apple or Sun are common comparisons, yes :) > What I'm curious about is how analogous or different is this cohesiveness to the days where vendors built the complete system? To be honest, that was before my personal time. I was a kid in that era, using ultra hand-me-down hardware. I'd speculate that one large difference is that hardware was much, much simpler back then.