thomasabishop/eolas
1
0
Fork 0
Code Issues Pull requests Projects Releases Packages Wiki Activity Actions

Autosave: 2024-09-30 07:00:03

Browse source
This commit is contained in:
thomasabishop 2024-09-30 07:00:03 +01:00
parent 0e1915a77e
commit b5c4734f49
2 changed files with 45 additions and 1 deletions
Show stats Download patch file Download diff file Expand all files Collapse all files

BIN
.zk/notebook.db
View file

Binary file not shown.

46
zk/The_History_of_Computing_Swade.md
View file

@ -709,9 +709,53 @@ Park (particularly the Homebrew Club of amateur computer engineers) along with
idealistic figures from the 60s counterculture (such as Stuart Brand) who began idealistic figures from the 60s counterculture (such as Stuart Brand) who began
associating computing technology as a tool of personal liberty and fulfillment. associating computing technology as a tool of personal liberty and fulfillment.
## Microsoft and Apple ### Microsoft and Apple
The PC "boom" began with the Altair 8800. This was a mail-order kit that The PC "boom" began with the Altair 8800. This was a mail-order kit that
required manual assembly. It was released by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry required manual assembly. It was released by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry
Systems (MITS) in 1975. It couldn't do much but had expansion capability Systems (MITS) in 1975. It couldn't do much but had expansion capability
(memory, teletype interface, casette player for data storage). (memory, teletype interface, casette player for data storage).
Bill Gates and Paul Allen made a proposal to MITS: they would write software
that would allow users to program the Altair in BASIC. They agreed and were
prepared to distribute the software. As a result Gates and Allen founded
Microsoft in 1975.
Around the same time, Steve Wozniak (member of the Homebrew club) built the
Apple I as a single-board hobbyist project. He made this available to buy via
mail order and formed Apple with Steve Jobs in 1976 to manage the enterprise.
By 1977 they had investment capital and brought out the Apple II. This was sold
preassembled with casing and required no soldering. It had expansion slots for
third-party vendors to create compatible devices and had colour graphics.
The design of the Apple II was published in _Byte_ in order to invite
crowd-sourced plugins and extensions. One of these was the Z-80 softcard which
allowed it to run the CP/M OS (created by the company Digital Research) giving
ready-made access to software such as a word-processor, spreadsheets and
databases.
Other competitors in the PC market at this time were Radioshack's TRS-80 and the
Commodore PET.
### IBM
All the while it was hobbyist and tinkerers driving the PC market, IBM had no
real interest. When PCSs started being used by businesses and their capacity
grew to include typical business applications (databases, spreadsheets) it
sensed an incursion into its market.
Thus, in 1981, IBM launched the "IBM Personal Computer" which rapidly became the
industry standard. This had the effect of legitimising the concept of a PC.
There was overwhelming demand. In their marketing IBM melded home and office use
to capture both markets at once.
The internal specification of the IBM PC was freely available (dubbed 'open
architecture'), in contrast to IBM's business computers, to encourage software
expansion. Cards could be created to fit in its expansion slots adding graphics,
sound, additional memory and networking capability.
IBM originally contracted Digital Research to create software based on CP/M but
this fell through. Microsoft got the deal to supply the OS which became MS-DOS
(Microsoft Disk Operating System). Henceforth every PC and PC-clone came with
DOS bundled.