24 ms·

It was only used by closed vertically integrated brands like Apple and Commodore (Amiga) at a time when open component based PCs were all the rage. I don't even

by api 3y ago

It was only used by closed vertically integrated brands like Apple and Commodore (Amiga) at a time when open component based PCs were all the rage. I don't even think M68K motherboards you could drop in a case and build with were even available. If they were it was never a big thing. The entire market dominance of the x86/x64 architecture came out of that era and came about because you could build PCs with it and run a variety of software on it including DOS, Windows, FreeBSD, commercial Unix, and later Linux.

pjmlp 3y ago
Only because IBM failed to prevent Compaq to start the component based PC market in first place.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Yep. This was, ironically, and in my opinion, the real reason the Mac never won the PC wars. Forced open-sourcing via clean-room reimplementation.
  - api 3y ago
    Oh definitely. The Mac lost because it was a closed platform in an era of open platforms where that open ecosystem was constantly driving up performance and capability while crushing prices. The modern Mac is actually more open than the classic Mac because it's a BSD system. The UI is proprietary but the underlying OS is pretty commodity and loads of software that runs on things like Linux runs on it with little or no modification. It was really a pretty magical time. I was a kid and a teen then and it seemed like the PC was this wide open field of limitless permission-free innovation. New software, new hardware, new capabilities were constantly being introduced and you didn't need an "entitlement" in an App Store or any of that nonsense. Nothing is really like that today except maybe the open source world, and even that kind of feels like a tar pit. There's still an open PC ecosystem but it's smaller and less dynamic. Of course I also understand what killed it. It wasn't just cloud/SaaS or mobile. It was also the fact that we now operate in a "dark forest" war zone environment where we all have to navigate a sea of malware and exploitive surveillance-driven borderline-malware. It's hard enough for knowledgeable people but for end users downloading software is terrifying. It's like going to the worst neighborhood in the city in the middle of the night and walking around among living-dead drug addicts asking people if they know where to find something.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      It wasn't an era of open platforms, as the PC was the exception, not the rule.
yetanotherloss 3y ago
Also a factor was that while clone machines existed of the IBM/Intel systems and earlier Apple and other 6502 computers, often out of Taiwan, the other vertical vendors managed to keep tighter control. 68k equipment from 3rd parties for Macs and such was much harder to come by. While that temporarily increased their margins, long term it meant that PC component costs kept dropping until you could get a 586 desktop that did 75% of a SPARCstation or NeXT for 30% of the cost.
- tcbawo 3y ago
  For businesses, the hardware cost of technology is much smaller than the investment they make in their workers or software systems. Having multiple interoperable hardware vendors to choose from in addition to an OS obsessed with binary backwards compatibility made Microsoft/IBM PC clones the obvious and safe choice. This created economies of scale that inevitably shrunk the market share of the other systems (Commodore, Atari, etc). Apple only managed to hold on by dominating the education and creative markets.

by api 3y ago

pjmlp 3y ago

Only because IBM failed to prevent Compaq to start the component based PC market in first place.

pmarreck 3y ago
Yep. This was, ironically, and in my opinion, the real reason the Mac never won the PC wars. Forced open-sourcing via clean-room reimplementation.
- api 3y ago
  Oh definitely. The Mac lost because it was a closed platform in an era of open platforms where that open ecosystem was constantly driving up performance and capability while crushing prices. The modern Mac is actually more open than the classic Mac because it's a BSD system. The UI is proprietary but the underlying OS is pretty commodity and loads of software that runs on things like Linux runs on it with little or no modification. It was really a pretty magical time. I was a kid and a teen then and it seemed like the PC was this wide open field of limitless permission-free innovation. New software, new hardware, new capabilities were constantly being introduced and you didn't need an "entitlement" in an App Store or any of that nonsense. Nothing is really like that today except maybe the open source world, and even that kind of feels like a tar pit. There's still an open PC ecosystem but it's smaller and less dynamic. Of course I also understand what killed it. It wasn't just cloud/SaaS or mobile. It was also the fact that we now operate in a "dark forest" war zone environment where we all have to navigate a sea of malware and exploitive surveillance-driven borderline-malware. It's hard enough for knowledgeable people but for end users downloading software is terrifying. It's like going to the worst neighborhood in the city in the middle of the night and walking around among living-dead drug addicts asking people if they know where to find something.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It wasn't an era of open platforms, as the PC was the exception, not the rule.

yetanotherloss 3y ago

Also a factor was that while clone machines existed of the IBM/Intel systems and earlier Apple and other 6502 computers, often out of Taiwan, the other vertical vendors managed to keep tighter control. 68k equipment from 3rd parties for Macs and such was much harder to come by. While that temporarily increased their margins, long term it meant that PC component costs kept dropping until you could get a 586 desktop that did 75% of a SPARCstation or NeXT for 30% of the cost.

tcbawo 3y ago
For businesses, the hardware cost of technology is much smaller than the investment they make in their workers or software systems. Having multiple interoperable hardware vendors to choose from in addition to an OS obsessed with binary backwards compatibility made Microsoft/IBM PC clones the obvious and safe choice. This created economies of scale that inevitably shrunk the market share of the other systems (Commodore, Atari, etc). Apple only managed to hold on by dominating the education and creative markets.