I forwarded the thread to a friend who was there at the time; here's his response.
...phsiii ========= Cool! Thanks. My own addition would be in the category of what might be called "business history." By the 1980s IBM was struggling in the mini and super-mini business. IBM had 5 hardware platforms, 9 or 11 operating systems (depending on how you counted), and minimal marketshare. DEC, DG, Wang, etc. were eating IBM's lunch in every market other than where purchases were controlled by the data center. Inside the data center, the large VAXes from Digital and the MV machines from DG were starting to threaten the mainframe crown jewels. A collaboration of sorts between Boca (engineering) and Atlanta (sales) led to a device called the S/32. This was intended to be a downward extension into the business market for minicomputers, building off the phenomenal success of the Rochester small business line: S/3, S/34, S/36, and S/38. The system came from Boca, outside of Rochester's control, but the sales driver was NMD, Boca and Rochester's sales arm in Atlanta. That hardware box had all the engineering characteristics of the original PC - 8088 processor, same storage options, 2 floppies - as I remember. However, the software was closed. Simultaneously, another part of Boca had been experimenting with at least 2 (I saw them), and maybe 3, commercial offerings that were squarely aimed at the PC market. The Boca PC team was given the go ahead and cannibalized much of the S/32's hardware. They produced a much more capable PC offering than the previous 8-bit offerings. I believe, unlike many of the comments in the thread, there was a business motive to the IBM PC. It was to attack the minicomputers. The attack was required because IBM's mainframes were being attacked from below by the minis. The correct business strategy was to attack the attackers from below with an even smaller / cheaper system. Which is the end of the story, boys and girls. For, while so many people focus on how the PC has damaged the mainframe, the mainframe still stands tall. What the PC was meant to destroy, it did destroy - the minis and superminis. DEC went from top of the heap (Queen Elizabeth in Boston harbor for DECWorld) to non-existence in less than 10 years. DG is no more. Wang is no more. The PC destroyed them all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
