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Cyhist Jul 21 1996 D
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Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 00:35:32 -0700
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From: Community Memory To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Vaporware and "Suites."
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Subject: Suites
First "suite" I ran into was something that came packaged with the Columbia
VP-1600 I bought in 1983. The "Perfect" group included Perfect Calc
(spreadsheet), Perfect Filer (sort of a database), and Perfect Writer.
Copyright in the manual is 1983 so is pretty close.
The "vaporware" was the promised CPM/86 which did not show up for almost a
year and only after repeated bugging of Columbia.
Of posible interest to the CPSR-History archives is the term "100% Compatable"
which was becoming very important at the time. In 1983, three "transportables"
were generally accepted as being "100% compatable": the Columbia, the Compaq,
and the Corona. I chose the Columbia because of the amber screen and the
wide array of promised packaged software - the suite mentioned, both MS-DOS
and CPM/86 plus a few others.
What was not important to me at the time but became very inportant later
was the inclusion of the Microsoft Assembler (MASM) and the built-in ROM
debugger.
People tend to forget just how expensive commercial software was at the time
and how little memory was supplied (PCs came with 64k standard then, my
Columbia was bloated at 128k which was soon increase to 256k at a cost of
over $300. Few years later a "multifunction I/O board" added another 384k
(to 640) at a cost of $100. It is sitting on my filing cabinet now with
2.2 Mb of RAM inside.
However the big point was "100% compatable". What this really meant was
"100% compatable with the IBM ROM BIOS of October 27, 1982". At the time,
IBM was vigorously protecting the software (AFAIR Columbia was sued for
being too close and Compaq had an agreement with IBM that they would build
only "portables", a market element IBM was not interested in at the time).
Believe Phoenix was the first to do a proper independent reverse engineer
and have other people design to the spec. but at the time IBM was being
very free with technical information (through PC-DOS 2.0, the IBM Technical
Manaual included a great deal of 8086 assembly code).
The test at the time was primarily "will it run 1-2-3 ?" because while
1-2-3 nominally paid lip service to MS/PC-DOS, what made it so fast on
a 4.77 Mhz machine was the fact that for the most part it bypassed the
operating system and made direct BIOS calls.
Further, to really speed things up, instead of bothering with Int 10 to
access the display, Lotus wrote directly to the 64k video buffer at segment
A000h (640k). This more than anything else firmly fixed the "640k barrier"
which limited development on the PC platform for so long but remember that
even as late as 1985 PCs were being sold with less - when the IBM PC AT
was introduced it came with either 256 or 512k of memory - to go
to 640k required a separate add-on board which was not cheap.
Warmly,
Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Community Memory To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" Subject: CM> Vaporware and "Suites."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment: Discussion of history of computing
X-Info: For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1993418347531.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 837971719.033
X-Status:
Status: RO
Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"
Subject: Suites
First "suite" I ran into was something that came packaged with the Columbia
VP-1600 I bought in 1983. The "Perfect" group included Perfect Calc
(spreadsheet), Perfect Filer (sort of a database), and Perfect Writer.
Copyright in the manual is 1983 so is pretty close.
The "vaporware" was the promised CPM/86 which did not show up for almost a
year and only after repeated bugging of Columbia.
Of posible interest to the CPSR-History archives is the term "100% Compatable"
which was becoming very important at the time. In 1983, three "transportables"
were generally accepted as being "100% compatable": the Columbia, the Compaq,
and the Corona. I chose the Columbia because of the amber screen and the
wide array of promised packaged software - the suite mentioned, both MS-DOS
and CPM/86 plus a few others.
What was not important to me at the time but became very inportant later
was the inclusion of the Microsoft Assembler (MASM) and the built-in ROM
debugger.
People tend to forget just how expensive commercial software was at the time
and how little memory was supplied (PCs came with 64k standard then, my
Columbia was bloated at 128k which was soon increase to 256k at a cost of
over $300. Few years later a "multifunction I/O board" added another 384k
(to 640) at a cost of $100. It is sitting on my filing cabinet now with
2.2 Mb of RAM inside.
However the big point was "100% compatable". What this really meant was
"100% compatable with the IBM ROM BIOS of October 27, 1982". At the time,
IBM was vigorously protecting the software (AFAIR Columbia was sued for
being too close and Compaq had an agreement with IBM that they would build
only "portables", a market element IBM was not interested in at the time).
Believe Phoenix was the first to do a proper independent reverse engineer
and have other people design to the spec. but at the time IBM was being
very free with technical information (through PC-DOS 2.0, the IBM Technical
Manaual included a great deal of 8086 assembly code).
The test at the time was primarily "will it run 1-2-3 ?" because while
1-2-3 nominally paid lip service to MS/PC-DOS, what made it so fast on
a 4.77 Mhz machine was the fact that for the most part it bypassed the
operating system and made direct BIOS calls.
Further, to really speed things up, instead of bothering with Int 10 to
access the display, Lotus wrote directly to the 64k video buffer at segment
A000h (640k). This more than anything else firmly fixed the "640k barrier"
which limited development on the PC platform for so long but remember that
even as late as 1985 PCs were being sold with less - when the IBM PC AT
was introduced it came with either 256 or 512k of memory - to go
to 640k required a separate add-on board which was not cheap.
Warmly,
Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
