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Back in the early days, MS-DOS was very much like CP/M in that there were several different 8088 machines. The “PC Compatible” hadn’t quite exploded yet, so MS-

Back in the early days, MS-DOS was very much like CP/M in that there were several different 8088 machines. The “PC Compatible” hadn’t quite exploded yet, so MS-DOS (and CP/M 86) compatibility was enough. But soon, Flight Simulator became the benchmark for compatibility, and I think the final nail was that Lotus 1-2-3 required an actual PC compatible machine. That plus the rise of clone BIOSs pretty much ended the brief era of generic, 8088, non-PC compatible machines, save for niche domains. An interesting artifact of this era was when Steve Ciarcia of BYTE magazine released his 8088 board, and it was not PC compatible. He made some different design decisions.

ngcc_hk 3y ago
Flight simulator as a test … still remember my boss tick that out as said you really cannot put that as requirement. We are in business not playing game …
Clubber 3y ago
I thought it was the BIOS that was the compatibility issue. That's one of the few proprietary parts IBM had when they released their PC. Clones were built on a reverse engineered BIOS that, for a while, wasn't quite right. I vaguely recall 90% PC Compatible computers or something like that. Halt and Catch Fire covers this. I could be wrong though. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312/