C integral types [was Re: Semi-OT: Why Kids Can't use Computers] (fwd)

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 05:12:14PM -0400, James Knott wrote:
> A lot of people don't know that it was originally written as a
> development system for a hardware manufacturer.  Seattle Computer
> Products, a manufacture of S-100 bus hardware, created it for testing
> new boards, while waiting for CP/M-86 to be released.  BG then bought
> it, after he had already sold it to IBM.  It was originally called QDOS,
> for Quick and Dirty Operating System.

Yeah, it's amazing we are stuck with the legacy of so many bad decisions.

IBM considered the m68k, but decided that the board would cost to much
compared to the 8088 (even the 8086 requiring a 16bit bus was considered
to cost too much).  Of course the Mac, Amiga and Atari ST all went
on to use the m68k, as did the Sun 3, HP 7xx, Apollo, and NeXT among
many others.  Amazing how a CPU that everyone used lost out to the one
only one type of machine used.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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