Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[pgerassi]

Chipguy:

Intel litigated and lost big time. Oh, but you have typical Intel revisionist memory and think it went differently. 68K wasn't unobtainable as I had one during the time in question along with a 68010 MMU. Worked quite well. What it didn't have was a 8 bit data bus version early on.

IBM didn't think segmentation until after the PC got very big. Before that it was more of a get it out quick. If they were thinking of segmentation and those issues early, they would have kept it closed and proprietory like Apple did. It was good they didn't look at it that way as the openess really allowed it to take off quickly and made them a lot of money. Proprietness and Microchannel showed that planned incompatability doesn't work. It didn't work for Apple very well either. People just don't buy limitations that well. It gets proven over and over again for each new generation.

Also trying to keep the microprocessor versions from taking over has failed time and time again. The IBM 370 and the micro370 version, the DEC PDP 11 and the LSI-11 version and the VAX and microVAX versions to name a few. Each time it was tried to slow the advance, it has failed either by destroying the company from within or doing it by others from without.

By the 386, IBM lost its leverage with Intel taking them out of the low end hardware and Microsoft stealing away the OS (heck they were founded on a crime, theft of intellectual property). Both Intel and Microsoft wrested control from IBM by updating out of them. Intel reneged on its contracts with AMD and were taken to task on those attempts. Perhaps IBM should have gone with the right choices, Motorola and Digital Research. They would have made more money in the long run. Eventually they went with Motorola and had success with them. They went with criminals and got burned.

Pete