[Vision2020] Birthdays

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Tuesday 12 August 2008 13:38, Dave wrote:
> I have one in my garage, figured it would be a collector item someday.  
> But apparently the original manuals are what's hot.

I haven't check the manual market lately, but that's not surprising. The 
manuals were pretty amazing when they first came out because the BIOS 
listing and schematics were all there for anyone to copy. IBM did that on 
purpose to encourage other companies to make add-in boards for the PC.

Within months, though, Columbia Data Products had a competing PC on the 
market, and the IBM-compatible industry was born. Compaq joined the party 
with its "luggable" portable, and mobile general-purpose computing got its 
start. With Compaq's introduction of the first Intel 80386 machine in 
September, 1986, the original PC machines began to decline, and, as soon as 
five years later, were reduced to copier-room door-stop duty in at least 
one corporation.

PC World listed the Compaq Deskpro 386 as the second most important machine, 
after the Apple II, in the history of Personal Computers. A reasonable case 
can be made that, were it not for the IBM PC's open architecture, and the 
full publication of its technical specifications, the personal computer 
industry, and all of the history that followed from its success, would have 
been significantly altered.


Ken