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From: sbb@esquire.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Microprocessors
Message-ID: <240@esquire.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 13:23:22 EST
Article-I.D.: esquire.240
Posted: Thu Dec  3 13:23:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 20:17:06 EST
References: <2175@tekig5.TEK.COM> <1026@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <2530@calmasd.GE.COM> <1818@epiwrl.EPI.COM> <1921@chinet.UUCP> <2769@drivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 29
Keywords: Intel, Motorola

In article <2769@drivax.UUCP> socha@drivax.UUCP (Henri J. Socha (7-x6628)) writes:
>OK, there are at least 3 Motorolans on the net in the MAC group
>that I know of who were at Motorola when IBM came around asking about
>the future IBM-PC.  They would know the timing.
>They would have first hand knowledge about why/when Motorola didn't sell
>IBM on the 68000  (or 6809 for that matter.  It's timing was almost right.)

Do we even know for sure that IBM ever knocked on Motorola's door?  Remember
that back in the good old days of IMSAI boxes and Z80/8080 based computers
IBM was a newcomer and their priority had to be solving the chicken and egg
problem of no software = no hardware sales = no software.  The easiest way
to do this was to go with a chip like the 8088 which made porting from the
Z80 world relatively painless.  For years MicroPro was able to sell an
"IBM PC compatible" version of WordStar which, as we all know, was nothing more
than a direct port of their venerable Z80 classic.  And WordStar wasn't the
only program written in assembler, of course.  In those days it was much more
common than it is now (also why WordStar used to be able to run in 48k and
now needs 10x that amount), and vendors (like MicroPro) wouldn't have
had such an easy migration path if IBM had gone with the 68000.

The rest, I'm sad to say, is history.  The very things we all flame Intel for
(tortured, segmented architecture, n-year backward compatibility, "virtual
8086" modes, etc.) are part of what has made them (and IBM) so successful.
Sort of ironic, huh?

-- 
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   ...!seismo!cmcl2!esquire!sbb |                           - David Letterman