For want of a POP, Tandy Radio Shack computers became relegated to the scrape heap. Their word processing program, SCRIPSIT, had a bug in the block text copy/move command that garbled large documents. I was able to buy a bunch of Model III/IV from a law firm that switched to MSDOS machines because of that bug. At the time I thought TRSDOS was as good as or better than MSDOS. It came with features like print spooling that I think were added later to MSDOS. Could be wrong about that. The fix was SuperScripsit which was not as user friendly.
Sent from my iPhone > On May 28, 2020, at 2:24 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > On Tue, 26 May 2020 at 21:52, Jim Brain via cctalk > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >> Well, *I've* heard of them, but I enjoy knowing about such things. Most >> in the US do not. > > *Nod* Shame but it's fair enough. > > I think there is at the least an article (and possibly an entire > university course module) comparing European and United States > hardware and software design schools in the early, pre-standardisation > days before the general-purpose computing market collapsed down to, > essentially, x86 versus ARM and Windows NT versus *nix, which is where > we are today. > > One could usefully compare this to the Japanese market, for a long > time _entirely_ separate and almost unknown anywhere else... and the > relatively tiny but important and totally different Japanese _export_ > market. > > In extremely broad, hand-wavey strokes: > > In the early *microcomputer* days (1970s and early 1980s) > > US: CP/M in business, meaning Z80. Home computers mainly 6502. > Converged by putting Z80s into 6502 machines, eventually built-in. > > EU: lots of totally dissimilar, incompatible makes and models, with > Z80 having a slight edge. No real convergence, CP/M much rarer due to > cost, and only ever becomes noticeably significant due to the Amstrad > PCW range from 1985-1990, by which point it was dead in its home > market. > > After the IBM PC became dominant: > US focusses on increasingly large/complex OSes to run on x86, and to a > lesser extent, 680x0 and later RISC. > > Windows 3 finally brings grown-up font handling in the 1990s, allowing > vanilla PCs to finally conquer the Japanese domestic market. > > EU: custom hardware continues, running custom OSes. Psion does EPOC > for its tiny power-efficient PDAs, then rewrites it totally in C++ for > ARM, creating EPOC32. EPOC32 becomes Symbian and makes smartphones > quite mainstream, aided by a unified world cellphone market for GSM > devices. > > US/Canada: no GSM, so no unified cellphone market, so pagers continue, > leading to increasingly elaborate devices with QWERTY keyboards, > fostering the development of multiple proprietary devices: RIM > Blackberry, Danger Hiptop, PalmPilot/Handspring. MS WinCE makes some > headway with very complex, fiddly little pocket computers with poor > performance and disastrous battery life, which also sell well in > gadget-obsessed Japan. > > Finally in 2007 Apple sweeps all this away with the iPhone: very > complex desktop-derived software requiring an extremely powerful > device, but giving a very simple user interface. Google hastily pivots > its Android aquisition from being a Blackberry-killer to being an > iPhone-ripoff. > > This finally makes US smartphones competive in the European/Japanese > markets, previously dominated by Symbian on Nokia, Sony/Ericsson and > other hardware with one tenth or less of the resources of the iPhone. > Moore's law makes these affordable, bringing tech originating in the > PC/Mac desktop market -- iOS, derived from Mac OS X, derived from > NeXTstep, originating from the Apple cofounder -- into the pocket > computer market and eliminating all other players. > > Rare exceptions, such as Apple and Be, who did European-style designs > (relatively small/simple proprietary OSs and apps on proprietary > machines with non-industry-standard CPUs) surrender and die or join > the mainstream, first by moving to an xNix base, then to x86. > > >> But, to be fair, most in the US don't even remember >> all of the US-based systems. Altair gets a nod as it shows up in >> articles concerning computer firsts, but none of the proto or early >> S-100 based systems are remembered (Cromemco, Northstar, etc.) nor the >> other Z80 machines like the Kaypro and Osborne. > > True, but I mean, I'm heading for my mid-50s and all that was before my time. > >> FOlks know about IBM, >> but most don't know they still make mainframes and midrange (OS400 or >> whatever it is called now) machines, and Burroughs, Wang, Amdahl, >> Hitachi are missed. , Super computer is forever linked with Cray, but >> Control Data, Thinking Machines, Silicon Graphics, and even Sun are no >> more remembered. > > True. :-( > >> On the micro front, Atari still carries some name >> recognition, mainly because of the coin ops and consoles, but everyone >> has forgotten about Commodore or that HP and TI made computers and that >> Tandy Radio Shack made a computer themselves and didn't just resell PC >> clones. THat doesn't even include the semi-pro machines or hobbyist >> options. So, while we didn't know about all the non US machines, we >> didn't even know about all the US ones, and folks have forgotten about >> the ones we did know about. People remember IBM because of the PC, and >> Apple because of the Mac (and that they did a "proto" mac machine back >> in the late 1970s (Hey, not saying it is true, it's just how people >> choose to position the Apple II). > > :-( > >> It is a shame we didn't see the BBC machines here, and the >> Timex/Sinclair joint venture to bring out the TS1000 made a mockery of >> the entire line, apologize for that. I agree the unit was plucky and I >> have one here > > :-) > >> . Evidently, there exists a lower bound of functionality >> of computing capability in the US, and the little wedge just didn't make >> it. > > No no. It wasn't that. It was _money_. > > On average, talking about food and clothing and vehicles and fuel and > the general cost of goods, everything is cheaper in the US than in the > rest of the developed world. USAnians do not generally realise this. > > US gasoline: just under $2/gallon, right? Google says $1.96. Call it $2. > > UK petrol (same stuff): £1.06/litre. £4 per US gallon. That's $5. > > I live in the Czech Republic, a much cheaper country than anywhere > English-speaking, but fuel costs the same as in the rest of the EU. > > Fuel is 2.5 times more expensive for Brits than Americans. That's why > our cars and motorbikes have smaller engines. It's partly why every > other developed nation has more public transport: because for us, it's > competitive, whereas for you, it's not -- your fuel is subsidised to > the tune of being about a third of what it should cost on the open > market. That's both why and because the US military/industrial machine > is so strong. > > I have never owned an automobile in my adult life. I got a drivers' > licence when I was 36. But if I left my home _now_ I could be at my > old place, in Brno, in 3h 30min and it would cost me $12. Tram from > here to Prague main station: $1. Ticket to Brno on the 9PM train > (2h20min, 120 mileS): $10. Tram from the main station in Brno to my > old place: $1. I'd be there before midnight. That's _why_ I have never > owned a car. I don't need one. I have never needed one. If I do, I > rent one. I have done this twice in my life so far. > > When US computers came to Europe, they were about 2½-3× more expensive > than local ones, AND vendors converted the pricing by removing the $ > and replacing it with £ (or the equivalent in any of the dozen local > currencies in continental Europe.) > > In the 1980s that effectively inflated prices by about another 2½ to 3×. > > So the ground-breaking first cheap US home computer was the Apple II, > which cost US$1,298 at launch (equivalent to $5,476 in 2019 says > Wikipedia). > > That was the price of a car here. > > So instead, a few years later, we got the Sinclair ZX80, which was > £99.95 (£432; $576 at 2020 prices) > > It's not that we tolerate lower specifications. It's not that we have > a lower barrier of entry. It's not that we tolerated poorer computers. > > It's that we couldn't _afford_ US computers. A cheap US home computer, > such as you would give to a child as a toy, cost as much as an > automobile. A fancy professional computer, such as an adult could use > for their work, cost as much as a house or an apartment. > > And that was the case until Amstrad disrupted the market with the > ground-breaking PC1512 in 1986. A PC clone for £499. Before that, a > _nice_ PC from Compaq could cost £5000. (OK, a cheap clone would be > only £1500 or so.) > > We had simple cheap low-spec computers because American high-end > computers were impossibly expensive. > > In my first job in 1988, we did sell Compaq and IBM PCs, but I worked > for a fancy high-end value-added reseller. The first ISA-bus 386 I > ever saw was a Compaq Deskpro 386 and it was destined to become a > Netware fileserver, attached to cheaper clone PCs. > > But the next dealership I worked for sold Amstrads. > >> By extension, all future machines were branded in the US, as I >> recall. Japanese MSX machines, > > You know that MSX was an American design, right? It just happened that > it only succeeded in Japan. It was broadly a Spectravideo-based design > with a Microsoft ROM. Yes, some design input from ANSI Corp of Japan, > but basically an American thing. > >> some of the neat options from Australia, >> lots of cool variety not seen in the US. > > I guess I had not realised until this thread how relatively uniform > the US computer scene was... > >> I can't really think of any. Some might say the Coleco ADAM, but it was >> ill-fated. > > True. > > Interesting. Fred has one counter-example. Just the one. Very interesting. > >> I have to believe (again), it was some Marketing demand. There's a list >> of reasons it was a bad idea from the start: >> >> * 40 column and no soft 80 column option on the 64, where almost all >> CP/M software expected 80x24 >> * No way to read CP/M disks in the market (all were FM or MFM, >> Commodore had no FM/MFM drive option) >> * Power hungry cart overloaded minimal PSU > > I guess I am realising that CP/M was a much bigger deal there than here. > > Amstrad's 8-bitters, the CPC series, had a DOS that was CP/M derived > and they could optionally run CP/M, but no home user here cared. It > was only the Amstrad PCW that changed that. The PCW was a proprietary > word-processor, which booted its proprietary WP app directly off > floppy -- no OS, no ROM chip. But luckily, someone on the design team > extended the design slightly and made it able to run CP/M and it came > with a CP/M disk in the box, meaning Amstrad could advertise and > promote it as a computer. (Bear in mind this was before Amstrad made > PC clones, and this "business computer" was about quarter of the price > of a very cheap clone PC.) > > Amstrad didn't learn from this -- after 3 million-selling PCW models, > the 2 successor models couldn't run CP/M and both flopped. > > > -- > Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
