Re:Microsoft creates special application class for Windows 8...
by pavlov on Monday March 12, 2012 @03:36AM
(#3692656)
To be fair, IBM and Microsoft didn't invent the open PC market.
Before the IBM PC showed up, there already was a thriving ecosystem of 8-bit PCs running CP/M by Digital Research. These had compatibility on several levels: CPU architecture (Intel 8080 + clones like Zilog Z80), operating system calls (CP/M had a simple API in the form of interrupts), user interface (same CLI everywhere) and also hardware expansion (a standard bus for add-on boards).
The MS-DOS ecosystem largely followed this model. Large parts of MS-DOS, including the API and the CLI style -- those drive letters too -- were in fact borrowed from CP/M to make porting existing software easier. (There was a thriving CP/M productivity software market with apps like WordStar and VisiCalc.)
IBM wasn't really happy that their PC had been cloned and turned into an open market, and a couple of years later they tried to regain control with a semi-closed platform called PS/2. It also included a new OS co-developed with Microsoft called OS/2. The whole strategy never quite came together and eventually Microsoft went their own way.
Before the IBM PC showed up, there already was a thriving ecosystem of 8-bit PCs running CP/M by Digital Research. These had compatibility on several levels: CPU architecture (Intel 8080 + clones like Zilog Z80), operating system calls (CP/M had a simple API in the form of interrupts), user interface (same CLI everywhere) and also hardware expansion (a standard bus for add-on boards).
The MS-DOS ecosystem largely followed this model. Large parts of MS-DOS, including the API and the CLI style -- those drive letters too -- were in fact borrowed from CP/M to make porting existing software easier. (There was a thriving CP/M productivity software market with apps like WordStar and VisiCalc.)
IBM wasn't really happy that their PC had been cloned and turned into an open market, and a couple of years later they tried to regain control with a semi-closed platform called PS/2. It also included a new OS co-developed with Microsoft called OS/2. The whole strategy never quite came together and eventually Microsoft went their own way.