The Computer Chronicles - IBM Clones (1985)

Special thanks to archive.org for hosting these episodes. Downloads of all these episodes and more can be found at: archive.org/details/computerch...

[@jonathanwei2477]

Why don’t we have shows with formats like this anymore - I mean like the interview style, the guests actually fully answers the questions eloquently and directly without being interrupted. They also explain it so well that most people can understand what they’re saying.

[@scorpiousmagus]

I was wondering that myself. I would say most mainstream media in our time are sponsored by this or that consolidated industry and are not going to ask the tough or just real questions. When they are challenged on a point it seems like most get combative or feel like they are being attacked even if what they are saying is sometimes untrue.

[@markcorrigan3930]

because people no longer see computer as something weird. People accept they HAVE to buy a pc, no need to convice them.

[@crBudgetWatches]

This Week In Tech and all Twit shows (Leo Laporte) still retain this format more or less . The rest are all KZbin monologues .

[@oldtwinsna8347]

They still have this type of thing going on with other subject matter, just that it's going to be a web conference type of format because getting people together is very expensive and difficult. There isn't as much incentive for exposure compared to the days of past where getting traditional print or media access was extremely, extremely, difficult. There were no other substitutes so people jumped at the opportunity to get into a tv production studio for their 2 minutes of fame. Not needed anymore. So you see less incentive for this of format altogether.

[@HardCase1911]

People back then didn't have permanent ADHD and attention spans of small birds.

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

I could just watch these for days

[@cedric-johnson4094]

U should! Everyday a new episode is doable

[@Ebotoman79]

I have been haha

[@charlesbaldo]

I have covid and I have been watching them for days.

[@kingsknightuk]

ive been watching them for years, there is just something amazing about this time in computing history

[@eddykohlmann471]

Hardly a waste of time either. I feel like I'm becoming a computer historian.

[@zsteinkamp]

Loved this show as a kid. I had no idea until this week what a giant of the industry Gary Kildall was. Look him up...

[@rumhave9632]

He literally deserves all of Bill Gates's credit. This went over everyone else's head: 20:35

[@theserpentes]

He was his eras Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and so on. Even when Apple and Microsoft became growing and made some things popular, Kildall really put lot on the wall... Sad that he died so young...

[@Sinuev1]

Jesus, I didn't realize that I needed this refresh after decades of slogging though the modern media landscape. It's like watching the AgReport - but for computers. Thank you for preserving these.

[@raven4k998]

Gary's dead lets party!!!🤣

[@mindphaserxy]

Thanks to Award, Phoenix and AMI for really making the IBM BIOS available to everyone back in the day

[@raven4k998]

(farts) much better damnit I can't stop farting man🤣

[@liquidpatriot4480]

It was such a game changer, allowing dozens of new companies and clones to hit the market that didn't have the money or means to reverse engineer the bios.

[@squaretrianglez]

My pc had ERSO Bios

[@dennispeterson3691]

This is the first time I've ever seen Gary Kildall! Wow, what fantastic history of the early days of personal computing!

[@pebear]

I learned to use the PC in the Air Force. I was a pipe fitter who knew how to type. They asked me to help out with some administrative tasks in my squadron. There I was given a Zenith IBM XT compatible machine. I learned Lotus 123 and Peach Text and Peach Base. When I got out of the Air Force I learned to build my own PC. I bought a part a week till I had enough to put it all together. Now I'm a Systems Engineer, doing everything from Network, SAN, NAS, Backups, PC's, Unix Systems, Linux, Windows. Thank you US Air Force for teaching me something useful....

[@tomahzo]

7:29 : Wow.... that's some hindsight right there ;D. And it didn't take many years after this point for IBM to be on the run. Things change fast in the computer industry.

[@Scalpaxos]

16:10 The way he turns off the computer is brutal, almost like "let's shut down this crap"

[@Nunavuter1]

It is amazing now how the whole concept of IBM compatibles was once a risky purchase idea. Years later, people had PCs with not one part from IBM. This is how the PC became so successful.

[@BoothTheGrey]

Already the first PCs of IBM had almost no parts from IBM.

[@mrgraff]

Haven't seen "B:\" in over 15 years!

[@mipmipmipmipmip]

just remap your disks!

[@hakemon]

If you're referring to the size of the disk, that is incorrect in so many ways. I have a machine which has 5.25" as A: and a 3.5" as B:.

[@frajaesdi]

:D

[@netherforager]

🅱️:\

[@ldchappell1]

My father gave me an IBM clone computer in 1993 when he bought a new one for his business. The one he gave me was about a year old and in good condition. Very sturdy and well made for a clone. It had 4 MB of RAM and a processing speed of 18 megahertz with a turbo boost. The only complimentary software it had was DOS 5.0. A week later my dad mailed a box full of software. DOS 6.0. Windows 3.1. Word Perfect. Lotus 1-2-3. I used it for 4 years and then bought another IBM clone that was nowhere near as good.

[@woodywoodlstein9519]

ldchappell1 Lol.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

Did you ever get on the internet with it?

[@digitalmagicAR]

My 1st computer was a 1991 386 with 2MB RAM I upgraded to 12( I think?) and 20MHz turbo button running MS DOS 5.0. It came with Lotus 1-2-3 also. It was a clone, back when clones were still a big subject in the industry. I still have it and it still all works except the battery died so I have to type in some values when it boots. I added a sound blaster clone card and later a pro audio spectrum. Computers were fun back then. It also came with an online program Prodigy. We played a couple games online with it, Vette! and Formula 1 Grand Prix.

[@ldchappell1]

@@gregorymalchuk272 I got on the internet with one of those AOL install diskettes that came with 75 free hours. A lot of people these days don't remember having to pay hourly for dial up internet. I also managed to get on line with a 1984 Macintosh with 1MB of memory in 1996.

[@ldchappell1]

@@digitalmagicAR I had Prodigy internet many year ago. I think it was 1999. I still remember my prodigy email address.

[@pipschannel1222]

Love those old Tandy and Compaq machines! People often underestimate their significance in the development of the PC industry. The Compaq Portable is a real icon and a game changer for the personal computer industry and was the instrumental machine to spark the development of open industry standards. Those early Compaqs with the old logo just have something magic about them. Can't really put my finger on it but I guess it's just plain nostalgia for a company that's no longer with us (not really anyway) ;-) I completely rebuilt a 1988 (20.000 USD 1988 MSRP!) Compaq Deskpro 386 recently. Must be the only one here in the Netherlands. It took a lot of time and effort but it was definitely worth it. Such a wonderful machine! Big, heavy beast! Today my Compaq Portable (1) will be delivered. It was cheap and is completely broken but in excellent (optical) condition. Gonna have a blast reparing this baby 😀👍

[@teknoguy2002]

Who the hell dislikes this video? I've been thoroughly enjoying all of these. It's a unique window into the past. It's so much fun to see where they were, and especially where they thought they'd be in the next several years, etc. Some of their opinions were spot on; some of them as so wrong it's kind of funny to watch this knowing how things really turned out. We had a Commodore 128 at this time. I think we got our first "PC Compatible" (486) in around 91. It was such an amazing machine at the time. We were so impressed.

[@domxem5551]

Perhaps some IBM’s ex-executives

[@jessihawkins9116]

it’s not 1080p it looks terrible on my 4k tv

[@teknoguy2002]

@@jessihawkins9116 So, you dislike it based on the technology available at the time? That's not really fair to the video. . .

[@jessihawkins9116]

@@teknoguy2002 they could’ve shot it on film then and upconverted it later 😤

[@teknoguy2002]

@@jessihawkins9116 It's a small college station. They probably barely had the budget to do what they DID do, much less try to future proof their productions.

[@intrinia2832]

16:05 *high pitch noise* Software isn't running... Gary: "I turn this off!" LMFAO!

[@DataWaveTaGo]

*high pitch noise* = 1985 BSOD

[@274pacific]

Such a boss move

[@beardsntools]

He was the true alpha of a man

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

@7:29 "Well I don't think anything is really a treath to the IBM position and I don't anticipate that they will begin to decline." Boy was he wrong! XD

[@ericastier1646]

how so, the PC is still the majority of home computing. Microsoft is a PC OS. Linux is more of a niche from computer geeks and apple OS is an alternative, not a takeover except in the smartphone which is a gadget not a work computer.

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

@@ericastier1646 PC IBM IBM has dropped completely from the PC market in the late 90s. All PCs are now basically clones. IBM PCs do not exist anymore. So the IBM position they were talking about in the video these days is zero.

[@ericastier1646]

@@PhoenixNL72-DEGA- Right, i read IBM = PC, thanks for the correction.

[@McVaio]

​@@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-They only stepped out of the PC market in 2004 or 05. And they were still the biggest PC maker at that time. So for another 20 years, IBM was pretty successful in their own market. The main reason they stepped out was the thin profit margins.

[@FranciscoMNeto]

"I don't own an IBM-PC compatible, and I don't think I ever will..." that did NOT age well

[@Tj-uc5sx]

Francisco M Neto all PCs are derived from IMB. Crazy

[@lucius1976]

Didn´t he became a Windows fan boys just a couple years later?

[@ewouthonig371]

@@Tj-uc5sx He was QUOTING, dumbass. And it's *IBM*

[@loganmacgyver2625]

He could be a Mac user to this day but that's unlikely

[@Scalpaxos]

@@loganmacgyver2625 Even Macs are IBM compatible now.

[@douglasengle2704]

This was such an informative and educational show when I watched it. My EE instructors were so totally ignorant on PCs, their business development and significance. This show put so much together for the viewer to understand. It taught you how to talk about computers.

[@BaconMinion]

Looking back at this makes you appreciate just how far we've come in regards to the ease of building your own PC.

[@newstarcadefan]

Oh yeah. Sometimes I actually go "good God how fast are we going" sometimes to tech. I mean It seems like 20 minutes ago that a 2 gig hard drive, and 500 MB Ram was high-spec.

[@nickwallette6201]

Well, at the beginning of the show they were talking about literally building one. From parts. That’s not happening anymore. So in a way, we’ve gone from being able to create your own clown to being able to assemble one from high-level modules. And it’s moving more towards integration to the point there’s not much left to assemble.

[@Maskddingo]

That was a bit of overreach even for back then! I found it kinda of funny. People used to build their computers from scratch before IBM and Apple came around. Almost nothing they showed from Radio Shack there in that segment would have done you any good inside your IBM PC.. or helped you build your own computer from scratch. The IBM PC was already comprised of these "High-level modules" you speak of. We haven't really progressed since then other than the width and structure of the bus and the size and shape of the interconnects.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@nickwallette6201 "Well, at the beginning of the show they were talking about literally building one. From parts. That’s not happening anymore." Building a PC wasn't significantly different then than it is now. There is more integration with modern PCs than there was in the mid 1980s, but it was still just a matter of plugging things together the same as today. For example, newer motherboards have integrated drive controllers (such as IDE, SATA, M.2) whereas old motherboards didn't; you needed a controller card which plugged into a slot (often called I/O cards; they had HDD and FDD controllers and usually some other things such as serial and game ports). Many, if not most, newer motherboards also have integrated sound and video hardware, and network adapters. Those things were nearly always, if not always, on separate cards way back when. L2 cache and "math co-processors" used to be optional; if you wanted them you bought them and plugged them in. Newer CPUs have them integrated.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@MaximRecoil Oh, it's a LOT different now than what they're talking about in this episode. Again, this isn't about choosing add-in cards and plugging them into a motherboard. By the late 80s and early 90s, that was normal. I built my own 486DX2/66 this way back in the early 90s, and have been doing it ever since. In the first correspondent segment, she's literally talking about examining the 5150's schematics, sourcing logic ICs, resistors, capacitors, transistors, card-edge connectors, and building something from *parts.* Not "IO Card" parts from MicroCenter. "74LS" parts from Radio Shack. This used to be possible, and even fairly common. My dad built a couple of 8-bit computers from kits back in the day. The 5150 would've been a big project for a DIYer, but it was possible. I'm actually looking at doing it myself, but I'm planning to integrate the vanilla logic ICs into FPGA to save a ton of space.

[@rabidbigdog]

In Robert Cringely's "Triumph Of The Nerds" he interviewed father-of-the-PC IBM's Bill Lowe (RIP) who said "non-IBM parts, non-IBM service" and he did more for affordable computing than Jobs or other imposters ever did.

[@junelawson5719]

"IBM's not in any danger" Ah, with hindsight, that is soooo funny. IBM got their ass pounded in the compatible market so hard, they quit!

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Watson called!

[@MrBenMcLean]

Actually, I don't think that's the case. It turned out that IBM made more money as a result of IBM-compatibles making their computer the industry-wide standard than they would have if they'd remained the sole manufacturer, because as the sole manufacturer, they could have easily been beaten by Apple or Tandy or somebody else. PC clones drove more widespread computer adoption by making computers more affordable, which further entrenched IBM's standard as the industry standard, which drove IBM sales beyond where they would have been otherwise. This was a great deal for everyone involved, because companies could have the security of "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" while at the same time investing in an architecture which all your partner companies were using clones of and which you knew you could always, always upgrade whether IBM kept making them or not. It was just good business for everyone, including IBM. IBM could say more than, "Our computers are the best" -- they could say, "Our computers are the standard."

[@ArumesYT]

They quit and they're bigger than ever. No use staying in a hardware business when the margins are practically 0%. Quitting never hurt their revenue or net income at all, so it was a sound financial decision, certainly not a submission.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@ArumesYT What exactly does IBM do now?

[@LionWithTheLamb]

@@gregorymalchuk272 They do quite a lot of things including but not limited to servers, cloud technology, aerospace, and medical. They're not the colossus that they were in past years, but they're still a giant in the industry.

[@tonystrike6467]

Love watching these, brings back memories of when i was in my teens, and was a privilege to see the birth of PCs. My first was a 286 after the spectrum.

[@dglcomputers1498]

And, of course, IBM employees would spread rumours about the clones, primarily reliability and compatibility. This is the reason why the Amstrad PC1512/1640 with the HDD option had a fan, due to the convection cooled PSU for the system unit being in the monitor the system unit didn't get hot enough to need a fan, but IBM spread rumours about how this lack of fan made them unreliable, it didn't, of course, but one was added to placate consumers.

[@raven4k998]

and what did it do not much other then make people happy that's about it

[@eightbit1975]

That Compaq screen noise is quite annoying. Gary was clearly annoyed ;)

[@batracien]

Your videos are historical gems, don't ever delete this channel please ;)

[@jwd0808]

I put together my first XT clone for $50 back in 1989. It had a 5MHz 8088 processor, and 256MB of RAM. :)

[@joew3641]

jwd0808 my memory isn't the best but do you mean 256K of ram? I dont' remember having 256MB until pentium 2 days :-)

[@CanuckGod]

Pretty sure it was 256K, considering that in 1989, 256 MB RAM would have cost around $50,000 (never mind the logistical impossibility of fitting that all inside an XT clone).

[@The98deville]

Highly doubt it was $50. You need a refresher course on what parts cost back then.

[@MrBenMcLean]

Why don't we have cool TV shows like this today??

[@ronhoek69]

We have plenty on KZbin.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

@Doktor Hachi Roku What's a TV?

[@BlownMacTruck]

@@ronhoek69 Most KZbin content doesn’t even come close to the professionalism or production quality of these shows. Now you get people who can’t cut every five seconds because they can’t make it through a sentence, their studio is a messy bedroom, and guests are few and far between. It’s all about “attitude” over content now.

[@Blackadder75]

@@BlownMacTruck you can easily limit yourself to only watch quality youtube content, just get some discipline . 95% of TV content was trash anyway , not worth watching (despite the production quality) Same with youtube.. maybe 99% is utter trash, but I don;t mind, because in that 1% that is left I can still find more than enough content to fill 100 hours a day. (which I don't have time for, so basically the choice is unlimited) All I need to do is be strict with my subs and never watch the homepage crap.

[@BlownMacTruck]

@@Blackadder75 Way to miss the point.

[@omegaman1409]

Who remembers the 90s. It was a massive explosion of pc’s sales. My first was in 1992. The first of many. Even my parents got a pc. This was prophetic.

[@ewouthonig371]

9:39 (Tandy Deskmate) "That might just be all the software he ever needs" HAHAHAHAHAHAA MAN this episode is GOLD.

[@bigdrew565]

Former Tandy 1000ex user here, our first computer, ordered in December of 1986 and i can confirm that we got by with deskmate for a couple of years. Until my father got elected Corresponding Secretary in our firehouse, at which time we acquired Homeword, a Sierra online word processor, second hand off of one of the members because none of us could figure out how to use wordstar at the firehouse on their ibm at

[@ewouthonig371]

@@bigdrew565 *EVER* . He said *EVER*

[@McVaio]

​@@ewouthonig371Oh my GOD! EVER is such a long TIME!!!

[@relathan1]

Wow. This episode is a great help when I'm watching "Halt and Catch Fire."

[@gheffz]

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Much appreciated.

[@richardhall9815]

That part about the Coke machines was hilarious.

[@bloqk16]

This is very interesting, as I had a front-row seat when the San Mateo Community College District, operator of KCSM-TV, where this TV show was produced at, obtained IBM PC clones for its computer classes. I was getting acquainted with PCs a short time after this TV episode aired, taking introductory computer courses at Cañada College [in the same Community College District as CSM], where the class I was in consisted of PC hardware that had [nearly] all the look and feel of the IBM-XT, but _without_ the IBM-XT nameplate. The only difference noted was with the keyboard, as it lacked the clicking sound the IBM-PCs were noted for. Speaking to the class instructor and her assistant about those PCs, they were evasive with giving me answers about who the PC vendor was for those [literal] IBM-PC clones.

[@dirkjewitt5037]

i just slapped together a RX6950xt/r5800x3d with an x570-I and 32gb's of DDR$ 3600 at c16. It took me all of 30 minutes to find out if the parts would work, 3 days to come in the mail and about an hour to build. How things have changed.

[@NachosElectric]

I have that same Semiconductor Reference Guide at 3:30! Got it twenty years ago at Radio Shack and I still have it.

[@drhoads08]

Man, that Compaq was so loud. Lmao.

[@Moon___man]

dudes face when he turned it off lmao.. like get this fucking shit outta here

[@SkuldChan42]

I used to really hate Paul Schindler when I was a kid watching this show - "I don't have a PC and you shouldn't either" - later "lets review Tunesmith for the IBM PC"...

[@johnknight9150]

I love the Paul Schindler segments because he usually predicts the exact opposite of what actually happened in the future. If I could go back in time I could advise people to bet the opposite way to Paul!

[@jeffm2787]

He reminds me of all that I don't like about California. Not sure if he even lives in California, he just gives me that impression. He's annoying and wrong.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

I believe he predicted commercial Internet would be the biggest flop the industry would ever see.

[@NachosElectric]

In the Computer Chronicles episode about lasers and the computer he predicted CD-Rs would come out in the 90s. I think that's really the only thing he got right.

[@RetroDawn]

He was right in his rant here, except for the bit about all the other companies other then Apple dying on the vine. Commodore had the fastest selling computer on the market at the time (the 64) and were working on the release of the most powerful computer of that time. And Atari had created a huge upset at the recent Winter CES with the 520 ST, which went on to sell quite well, particularly in Europe. Of course, in the 90s, both companies did die, but that was years later. It wouldn't have happened without the dominance of the IBM clone and Microsoft OSes, though. Which goes back to the core of truth of Paul's rant.

[@janruudschutrups9382]

Building your own IBM clone in 1985 took about 2 weeks...

[@captainkeyboard1007]

And a whole lot of studying, learning, researching and technical tools, just to get started.

[@quadravert]

Meanwhile the guy who’s code was copied is ASKING THE QUESTIONS

[@jacksong6226]

Lol

[@McVaio]

His code wasn't copied though.

[@ibazulic]

Tunesmith really fooled us all! :-D

[@pebear]

One thing the IBM PC XT had that no one ever duplicated was that IBM Basic (GW Basic) came built into the firmware of all the early IBM XT computers.

[@RetroDawn]

Indeed, although it was called IBM Cassette BASIC, and was included on more models from IBM. GW-BASIC was a standalone version of BASICA, the later of which only worked on real IBM PC/XT/AT/early PS/2 models, or on the PCjr if patched to bypass the check that prevents it from running on the PCjr. BASICA required Cassette BASIC, which is why it only ran on those models, as they were the only models that included Cassette BASIC. PCjr had IBM PCjr Cartridge BASIC, which was similar to BASICA, but included support for the PCjr graphics and sound and could only access 128K RAM, which was all the PCjr was designed to support (although even IBM, in addition to 3rd parties, released RAM expansions to upgrade well beyond that).

[@pebear]

@@RetroDawn the original XT had basic built into to ROM

[@RetroDawn]

@@pebear Yes, like I said, though, IBM Cassette BASIC was built into the IBM PC/XT/AT/PCjr and early PS/2 models.

[@TheEulerID]

IBM losing control of the technical specification was confirmed in 1988 when the "gang of nine" declined to follow IBM down its proprietary Micro-channel route. From then on, IBM was increasingly a standards follower, not a standard setter in the PC market, and were increasingly engaged in a price war, which they were ill-equipped to win.😮

[@lookingjust987654321]

Think I just figured out why radio shack didn’t own the world even though it was positioned so well at the time (this guy)

[@Losttouchjs]

This was around the time when Compaq Computers was giving IBM Big problems!

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

Yes, a few years before Compaq and other clone makers that followed in their footsteps drove IBM out of the PC market for good. :D

[@McVaio]

​@@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-twenty years is not a few

[@tr1p1ea]

Awesome series, wish they showed it in my country when I was young.

[@pebear]

There was a test to see if your machine was actually IBM PC / XT / AT compatible. That test was: Could it run MS Flight Simulator. if it could I would certify it 100% compatible. If not too bad so sad...

[@RetroDawn]

The gold standard test back then was FS II and Lotus 1-2-3. If it could run both, it was considered compatible.

[@pebear]

@@RetroDawn then can MS Flight simulator considered an ultimate test of a clone

[@dominic.h.3363]

"It can respond, do tricks and its designer says, eventually crossbreed with other compu-pups. I wanna see that one!" First in the christmas special, now here... Stewart has a curious interest in animal reproduction.

[@Palin3]

To be more specific, animal robot reproduction!

[@DevinBauer]

"Electronics store", what the heck is that? Those days are long gone here

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

Yeah , thanks to KMart and Walmart .

[@widowmakerx7]

We don't call them IBM clones anymore, we call them computers.

[@JaredConnell]

More specifically we call them PCs.

[@AcornElectron]

IB who?

[@mindphaserxy]

​@@JaredConnell Windows PCs 🧏‍♂️

[@pcampbell3068]

Technically we should be calling them ATs. PC/XTs are not these.

[@MaximRecoil]

@@pcampbell3068 "Technically we should be calling them ATs. PC/XTs are not these." They aren't ATs either. There isn't a single part from an IBM PC/AT that will plug directly into a currently-manufactured PC. Furthermore, ATs were still PCs. The official name was IBM Personal Computer AT. Its predecessor's official name was IBM Personal Computer XT, and its predecessor's name was IBM Personal Computer. "PC" is an initialism for "Personal Computer," obviously.

[@Redstripe921]

Gotta love the old school intros to these shows

[@davidtillwach5542]

There not a show like this on Television today just garbage shows noting showing building something and being constructive . This show was the bomb in the day I remember back in the day you program a computer or make video game from a program in a book or make it your self .

[@DonnDeVoreMusic]

27:47 glad they never finished that SYBFD (Scan Your Brain For Drugs) device for the New Jersey police.

[@Daehawk]

Thank goodness for clones.

[@MrBenMcLean]

At 13:54 we see how DRM is evil. All it does is give power to middlemen and inconvenience legitimate customers.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

We need both free and open source software and hardware. Look up RISC-V, a fully free and open processor architecture.

[@dalmocalmo420]

28:25 Wait, if nobody was in the building, who emptied the coke machines?

[@Blackadder75]

"I don't think anybody will threaten IBM...." 10 years later they were in deep trouble, 15 years later they had left the PC market. Will Tesla still be around in 2035?

[@Microtonal_Cats]

My first computer was one. OEI XT. But I got it in 1991. lol.

[@edward_lee]

17:30 Wow, Gary Kildall saw this coming.. And software patents are still unsettled given all the patent trolls we have today.

[@MrBenMcLean]

I believe in software copyright, but software patents need to die.

[@gregorymalchuk272]

@@MrBenMcLean Have there been any recent high-profile cases of software patent disputes?

[@balesjo]

A refresher of computer history that's nearly 40 years old now. I remember the whole issue of the IBM clones at the time. Now IBM is out of the PC business and software is pretty much expected to work as long as you meet the hardware requirements. Also, most of these early-day clone manufacturers are gone now, either bankrupt or absorbed into other companies years ago. Also, try to remember a time when a 38 pound computer was considered 'portable"! Now there are super thin notebooks that are just a few pounds, tablets averaging a pound or less, and smartphones less than a pound.

[@McVaio]

Nearly? It's well over 40 years old. The first IBM PC came out in 1981, the first microcomputers sometime around 1975 and the computer industry as a whole started in the 1940s.

[@gwebocelestron9194]

I bought my first cloney-clone in 1985. Ah, the days of having to set your own interrupts and memory allocation to get stuff to work. And, there was that awesome Turbo button. Opening protected games in a hex editor to blank out the code so you could copy and share with your friends. Those were the days.

[@seleccionmultiple2905]

Before IBM came PC market was like wild west and consumers needed a level of security for their invesment : at that time you went to a computer "dealer" because a computer cost like a used car.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

The dealers are a large reason they were expensive since the margins were high to keep them in business. In 1984, an unknown company called Dell computers saw potential to bust this market and sell computers direct as well as being made the cheapest way possible as its pure business model.

[@sideburn]

Funny Gary mentioned the apple pull down menu GUI lawsuit while DRI was getting sued by apple over GEM probably at this exact time.

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

He was being professional about it . When this show had Jack Tramiel and other ATARI reps on the show you could see a big grin on his face when the OS was brought up .

[@jannevaatainen]

I want the TuneSmith/PC! Can't find it anywhere...

[@DataWaveTaGo]

At 4:00 "...this PC project took 2 weeks to complete, not including about a 100 hours of research." Today, when you want to build a new rig it takes 2 hours research and 2 hours build time, even faster if you DIY a lot.

[@Owen-hg3cu]

Could it have included needing to mail order the parts? I remember sending off a check and waiting weeks for delivery

[@sewer56lol]

2:36 And thus the PCMasterRace was born early!

[@TheMamaluigi300]

Maybe too early. This shit was before the NES.

[@Clay3613]

+sewer56lol Yet most PCs couldn't handle console games properly till the early 2000s. Mega Man for Dos in 1990 only had 3 bosses and a smaller color pallet than the NES.

[@MrBenMcLean]

Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit did everything Mario and Sonic (respectively) did, only ours had laser guns. #PCMasterRace

[@BlownMacTruck]

@@MrBenMcLean uh, that’s 10 years later. PCs were pathetically behind for years.

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

God I remember when they started shows with two shadowy figures and then switched on the lights... I wonder why that went out of favour? Also, the "futuristic" font they use was invented and a cliche before I was born, so to me it never looked futuristic, it always looked hilariously kitsch! I Does anyone know the font's name?

[@nickwallette6201]

I’m curious about that too. Wonder where that design came from?

[@hakemon]

It's called the "Data 70" font.

[@Maskddingo]

Who ever said it looked futuristic?

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

@@AssopraCartuchos You just blew my mind! 🤯 I never noticed that before now, but then I've never written a cheque either, my mum used to in the supermarket when I was a kid... I remember the mechanical ink thing they'd put the cheque in to fill it out quickly. I don't know if you can even still pay that way in shops any more...

[@intrinia2832]

Send in the clones!

[@mgatelabs]

I’m so glad the clones existed, it would be a different world if IBM had the monopoly

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

I wonder how long Paul Schindler’s resolve not to buy anything compatible with an IBM PC lasted ...

[@bl8896]

Why was that guy on his knees and why was there a picture pointing towards him, so many questions

[@alpzepta]

The funny thing is that everyone are using a PC Clone now you know Dell HP and Lenovo The real pc is non existent after IBM sell their Thinkpad to Lenovo

[@gamingtonight1526]

... And now we all have compatible PC's! Don't know a house with an IBM desktop PC, because IBM don't make them anymore!

[@OpenGL4ever]

You could buy Lenovos. That way you will get a true IBM Bios.

[@louistournas120]

Thank the lord that the IBM BIOS was selected as a standard. Finally, the PC makers began making compatible motherboards, compatible BIOSes. The CPU makers made x86 CPUs. Compiler makers targeted x86 CPU and MS-DOS. Write software once and deploy!

[@knivestv0]

2:44 And here we are. Custom builds, let's go.

[@heartsineurope]

Best intro ever lol

[@MrBenMcLean]

At 16:34 -- was "Computer Land" a specific store? Or is he speaking metaphorically of being involved in computers?

[@gregorymalchuk272]

No, he basically means engineers dumping the ROM BIOS and making a direct, bit-for-bit copy of a copyrighted piece of software, rather than emulating the BIOS functions by writing a new but compatible BIOS. IBM would sue you for copyright infringement if they found a direct copy of their BIOS on a clone computer.

[@ChuckvdL]

“Computerland” (one word) was a major chain of PC retailers in the day. “Businessland” was another. So he was basically saying “buy an ibm retail and then reverse engineer”

[@Starhartdeer]

Oh my god i love that coke machine bug haha!

[@tyronedrane8394]

Eagle PC a dream killed too early on, probably was the best at the time of the IBM clones.

[@BLASTIC0]

15:26 jammed?! Is that like an ancient version of freezing? 😂

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

I wonder what happened to Gary's family?

[@gregorymalchuk272]

I think he had a son and a daughter, but I don't know what ever happened to them.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

@@gregorymalchuk272 The son is a media artist, did a lot of work creating various imagery on computer games and major web sites

[@activelow9297]

These IBM clones... I wonder if they will ever take off.

[@wallacelang1374]

I had no interest in IBM Clones during the mid 1980s for at that time I had an Atari 800XL computer which had a clear line of what would work on it. However about a decade later I would buy a Windows based Pentium processor PC.

[@AriannaEuryaleMusic]

I have an Apple Newton Clone, that still works fine.

[@christineayres5339]

Amazing that must be over 30 years old now

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

28:47 Did they have any network/comms engineers at their company? Let me introduce you to this concept known as “random exponential backoff” ...

[@crBudgetWatches]

Wasn’t the Tandy 1000 not 100% compatible with IBM?

[@grandmaster1004]

Wait, so am I right in assuming that everything today (PC wise) has come from IBM and it's clones? I'm on an evolved IBM clone right now?

[@McVaio]

Yes.

[@CanuckGod]

In essence, yes, unless you're running a pre-2006 Macintosh, which would have used either PowerPC processors, or in the case of earlier Macs, the Motorola 68k series. At that point Apple switched to CPUs based on the x86 architecture pioneered by Intel that DOS/Windows users were using for decades, so the internal hardware was identical to the 'PC' side, only differing in the operating system used. For my part, I've always ran DOS & pretty much every Windows from 3.1 to 10, but even the MacOS X people are using virtually the same hardware we are now.

[@TechRyze]

Yep - and your phone is an evolved Acorn Archimedes.

[@dirkjewitt5037]

it looks like IBM clones had a tough start. But then again, I don't know anyone that owns an IBM based desktop. I bought my daughter a Lenovo laptop, an IBM in name only.

[@richardfeynman5560]

Woody and David, that sounds funny and promising...

[@aurel11]

very interesting

[@davidtillwach5542]

RIP Gary Kildall

[@user-rt9zq8rs9k]

Yeah , it's too bad we got that dink Bill Gates to put up with all his crappy software instead of Gary's OS .

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

IBM fanbpys vs clones fanboys, Apple people vs Microsoft people, Sega consoles vs nintendo consoles.. the war keep on coming and there is no end to it.. Today we have PC computers with MACos installed.. and MACs with windows installed.. and some even have both windows and MACos..

[@blackneos940]

No mention of Linux or the BSDs?? Solaris??? And your spelling could use some improvement.

[@ArumesYT]

@@blackneos940 What, you want him to give a complete list of the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of operating systems that ever existed? You know you have a VERY weak point if you have to support it with a spelling complaint of all things... Get a life, noob.

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

@@blackneos940 you can improve how to complain and add a few questions you can ask yourself before you commit to it. "Should i go word n*zi or not?" "Will people like me more if i split hair or go full word n*zi or will it change the conversation and add useless time consuming information that have no purpose or reason to be mentioned?" "is it any reason to start and split hairs and will it add something to the conversation?". "did you like this useless piece of text that didnt answer your original comment and was forced by you to reply to your previous complaint?" you should ask where people come from before you throw dirt in their face. 1: Background check (if needed/if subject require it), 2: look at the background and get a overview (if needed/if subject require it), 3: throw dirt in peoples faces if there is a good reason for it (or dont if there is no reason for it) 4: wait for a proper reply from the person you complained at (and read a long time consuming explanation for no reason that give no answer to your original subject or comment). ---- But back to the important part, yes. Its many more OS people have used.. the point was to point out that the operating system wars have been and will be a thing for the rest of our lives and continue when your kids grow up.

[@ericwood3709]

Paul Schindler nailed it, of course. It was dumb for IBM to be allowed to define personal computers so that suddenly that's all anyone ever wanted to use and, most tragically, develop software for. I feel that Wintel stifled PC innovation terribly, and that we were stuck with awful operating systems for many years when we did not need to be. The only good alternative became the Macintosh, with all others being increasingly relegated to the past or to special uses, such as the RISC and SPARC workstations. That DOS survived on the predominant home and business PC platform until the 21st century is abominable. That Intel's CISC CPU architecture has remained fundamentally unchanged for decades even to this day is equally abominable.

[@Aaron-dt3xz]

I look forward to the inevitable replacement of x86 with ARM / RISC V.

[@ericwood3709]

@@Aaron-dt3xz I would like to see this also, or at least see more competition from these or other architectures. Raptor Computing Systems now sells EATX and micro-ATX boards and systems for IBM Power9 CPUs, and it sounds like they will offer Power10-compatible variants when that comes out. It's just unfortunate that they are relatively expensive and limited in the kinds of features regular users might want.

[@captainkeyboard1007]

The only disadvantage I find with the Macintosh, then the Apple microcomputer is that it was incompatible to run business productivity programs like Windows computers can manage, mainly database programs, like Microsoft Access, and Borland Paradox. Otherwise, I would have been craving for a Macintosh, even an Apple computer. I would gladly call that computer my "keyboard."

[@Blackadder75]

all you hardcore computer enthusiasts always forget the average user, like our secretary, who just wants her computer (laptop these days) to run reliable, open her Teams call. business email, spreadsheet program etc. She has no clue what an architecture is. This was basically the same in 1990 as it is now. Microsoft + Intel + IBM were the best in providing that functionality, that's why they won and everybody copied it. there are far more of these casual users than there are hardcore power users, who prefer Linux or different hardware.

[@ericwood3709]

@@Blackadder75 No, they really were not the best at it. The Mac in the 80s and 90s was a far superior experience for the end user, especially prior to Windows 95. But IBM and Microsoft had a stranglehold on the market that simply kept competitors out, and that legacy endures.

[@cpcnw]

Imagine being Gary appearing on this episode, and others like it - a guy who developed one of the earliest micro programming operating systems and conceptual idea of the BIOS - having to look at these IBM clones that essentially 'borrowed' from many of his ideas but slapped intellectual copyright protection on them? He entered an industry as a true open innovator and wanted more than anything to share and develop ideas so everyone can benefit but instead got pretty much prevented from competing in a market place he was in large part responsible for creating? Humans eh?

[@McVaio]

Sadly it was mostly his own fault. Still sad to see. He did keep on innovating though, with software like GEM and Concurrent DOS.

[@oldtwinsna8347]

i believe much of that was because of his wife at the time, to whom was an equal partner. She focused on the business side of the house such as contracts, marketing, and such. Gary was focused on the R&D, technical, side of the house.

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

@29:00 Tamagochi anyone? :)

[@johnsimon8457]

14:24 “Where the computer manufacturer decides to put the program in RAM” Oof no kernel - really - no memory protection, no concept of processes and of course things like bioses are going to affect how apps run. It’s the wild west!

[@OpenGL4ever]

Well DOS had a kernel, but it only helped manage disk resources. That's why it is called disk operating system.

[@stereocodes]

$4000k was a lot of money back then and its still considered a lot of money for a PC today. it just shows how much of a ripoff those IBM machines were.

[@mrburns366]

"It could almost be DIY job" lol yeah, it could. 😂

[@maleficarus]

4K back in 85' would be like an 8K PC today!

[@user-pi7ug4dm6m]

More like 120k they barely had full color displays and high resolution was like 320x160 lol

[@kcinplatinumgaming2598]

lol david bunnel .. he had his hair cut for this show lol .. wonder how gary felt about the ibm pc and microsoft when he helped make these shows.. as he was the founder of digital research and the day IBM came to teh office and he was flying around and his wife told them to go.. would he be the bill gates if he was there IBM wanted that signature ... something we shall never know

[@svensubunitnillson1568]

28:26 lmao - POTS race condition.

[@AgeingBoyPsychic]

3:13 Ah the 80s, where even computers were at risk of sexual harassment

[@JPX64Channel]

WTF XD