On 13/07/2012 16:49, Man at B&Q wrote:
On Jul 12, 7:24 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Man at wrote:

That's odd as the first IBM PC I camne across (circa 1982 or '83) came
with complete schematics and documentation.

ITYM that your employer provided the schematics and documentation. IBM
were less than forthcoming.

Take it any way you like. The fact remains the technical info was
available from IBM.

Which, according to my memory, is why the Intel based PC is now the
standard, and the Mac is a niche product. IBM published almost all the
details that were needed to copy and expand the product. They only kept
the BIOS software proprietary, so other motherboard makers had to
reverse engineer it, though most of the BIOS calls *were* documented.

I could also mention here IBM long term support, in that I have a
Thinkpad 760 from 1993, and can still get all the DOS/ Window 3.1
drivers and service manuals on the Lanovo website. The unit even works...

Apple refused to licence their designs, so people couldn't make copies
legally or easily. That's why the Apple Mac was an expensive niche
product for so long.

Neither of them took off until the killer application came along though.
For the Mac, it was, IIRC, Quark Express, for the PC it was, again IIRC,
Excel.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.