Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

If IBM could have read the writing on the Mall . . . .

IBM certainly had enough power to encourage developers. I mean Apple did that for the Macintosh at the time the Macintosh was nothing compared to the IBM empire.

Different market, different mindset.

More an issue of different market *share*, I think. IBM was used to calling the shots for the entire market, and so expected (pretty logically, to be honest) that the market would cater to their dominance. Apple never had that kind of dominance in the PC market (and still doesn't), so their relationship with developers was much more hands-on.

But look at how Apple deals with iPhone app developers. They *are* the big dog in smartphones, they know it, and they act like it. -- Joe

A SIPP of some sort. As the Wikipedia article points out, these were replaced by SIMMs:

At times, we used the same memory as the XT PC of the day, which was 30 pad SIMM Modules:

We sometimes soldered pins onto them, so we could insert them into a 30 pin socket:

Or simply plug them straight into a suitable socket:

However most users simply plugged DIP version DRAMs straight into the PBUFF board, which was designed to accept them.

The SIMMs were just a later alternative to use old XT DRAMs, and-or to build up the memory capacity of the original buffer board.

DRAM could be 1, 2, 4, or 8 DIP chips, or 30 pin Simm modules. I think I had 11 memory sizes. So by using a combination of DIPs and-or SIMMs, you could use your surplus memory chips for somethig useful.

Cheers Don...

=================

Just adding to that, these were fairly rarely used, but I found a picture of the SIPP package.

Cheers Don...

-- Don McKenzie

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Just adding to that, these were fairly rarely used, but I found a picture of the SIPP package.

Cheers Don...

-- Don McKenzie

Site Map:

USB Isolator 1000VDC For Protecting Your PC OR Laptop

These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:

Walter Bushell wrote

They wouldnt have pissed all that money against the wall on OS/2 etc.

Nope. The very fundamental problem was always that while ever the absolute vast bulk of PC came with Win installed, nothing IBM did could ever change that.

Yes, because it had a much better user interface than DOS PCs hand.

That wasnt why OS/2 never flew.

The other very fundamental reason OS/2 never took off in the mass market was because it did a pretty hopeless job of running the older stuff that so many wanted to continue to use at least for a while.

Hardly anyone was interested in changing all the apps they used.

Thats why Win left it for dead, even tho it was an inferiour product.

Joe Thompson wrote

And they lose quite a few sales with that approach too.

Its only just got multitasking. Same thing happened with the Mac too.

The iphone is a very interesting commentary on what marketing can do, but the sales they lose is too.

of the SIPP package.

Might have been that type, as I remember that it plugged into a row of turned pin headers along the edge of the PBUFF board.

They very likely came from one of those surplus parts distributors that advertised in electronic magazines at the time - that would have been the sort of source our budget tended to favour at that point in time - just coming off of 17% home loan rates ;)

Anyway it worked very well for a few years until WIN95 came along and wasn't needed anymore.

that.

Sure they could. At the time, they could have provided the same sort of encouragement to the clone manufacturers to preload OS/2 that MS did for Windows.

I don't remember it that way -- my recollection was that it did as well on those as Windows did.

I had forgotten my own work. Too many years. Yes the later version boards had a row of 30 pins for the SIMM-SIPP type DRAM memory modules.

I just checked the schematic at:

Quoting from my page at:

"The current Rev. K board has additional provision to install an alternative 256K/1Mb/4Mb SIPP/SIMM type MEMORY MODULE. That means, you can either install standard 16 or 18 pin by 1 bit Drams, or a MEMORY MODULE. Both 8 byte and 9 byte type MODULES can be used. The software ignores the ninth byte.

PBUFF Supports a mixture of 64K/256K/1Mb/4Mb DIP/SIMM/SIPP DRAMs in 10 memory sizes up to 4Mb. Supports 64K, 128K, 256K, 320K, 512K, 1024K, 1088K,

Cheers Don...

===========================

"A better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows"

Me either. I ran OS/2 and my recollection is that it ran DOS programs better than Windows did and ran the majority of the Windows programs just as well as Windows itself did, and a few much better than Windows did. When I installed OS/2 I set it up for dual boot, as I was expecting that there would be some DOS or Windows programs I'd have problems with. In practice I rarely booted to Windows. In those cases I think it was only to run a couple of games that wouldn't run correctly in OS/2.

Things changed over time, of course. When the newer versions of Windows came along and OS/2 could't keep up with them I eventually had to give up on it and switched to Windows.

I also well recall my surprise after doing so the second time the machine crashed. Not the first time, as I'd managed to crash OS/2 on a few rare occasions. But when Windows crashed on me the second time, in the same day, it really gave me pause. I adjusted, of course, as everyone did. But after having OS/2 run for months without shutting down, it was a real annoyance to have Windows crashing a couple of times a week. Sometimes more often. And learning to shut down when I was done for the day, so Windows wouldn't crash due to running out of resources.

- Bill

Joe Pfeiffer wrote

that.

Nope.

Nope, because not enough of the apps had native OS/2 versions for that to be viable and they never did either.

Nope, its support for DOS apps was pathetic.

Roland Hutchinson wrote

Just a glib slogan. The reality was that the support for DOS apps was pathetic.

In spades with the apps that dealt with the hardware directly, like the comms apps that universally did that.

Yes, the approach OS/2 took to not allowing dos apps to do anything they liked with the hardware was certainly the way to go stability wise, but it had the massive downside that there were hordes of dos apps like that that just didnt work on OS/2 and the authors just werent interested in doing OS/2 versions of their apps while ever OS/2 only ever had a tiny subset of the market.

That was the chicken and egg situation that even an IBM couldnt do a damned thing about.

And generations of computer users got trained to expect the OS to crash all the time and have to run malware protection all the time.

Bill Leary wrote

those as Windows did.

Nope, particularly apps that dealt with the hardware directly. Comms apps in spades, and they universally banged on the hardware directly.

There are still quite a few of them around, mostly used for more obscure stuff like PLCs and hardware controllers etc.

Games in spades.

did, and a few much better than Windows

Thats wrong too, particularly the stuff that didnt things the way they were supposed to be done.

would be some DOS or Windows programs

cases I think it was only to run a couple

You clearly werent using the PC for controlling any obscure hardware.

The lack of support for games alone killed the OS/2 market in the days before consoles dominated the games market.

You still see the same problem with games and linux today.

And hardware that isnt bog standard in spades.

Even just with a PVR, there is much less support in linux and none in OS/2 at all.

along and OS/2 could't keep up with them

And those who need to use anything at all unusual hardware wise never bothered with OS/2 and games in spades.

Yes, it was technically much more bullet proof, but it never could do a damned thing about the fact that no one much bothered with supporting OS/2 with native apps and with hardware and games in spades.

Even very basic stuff like support for USB devices was pathetic.

And that, to me, is Microsoft's greatest crime against humanity.