Tangentially related: is there a history covering IBM's development of microcomputers? It is clear that the traditional story of the development of the IBM PC leaves out many important details. There the 5100/5110/5120, which goes back to the mid-1970's and reflects the stereotype of IBM. There is also the System/23 DataMaster, where the hardware seems to be the basis of the IBM PC. This seems to go against the traditional story that the IBM PC was some sort of renegade project. (If anything, they appear to be companion projects. The main difference being the DataMaster's focus upon IBM firmware/software.)
The IBM Datamaster is an interesting system, but it was doomed. It had an 8-bit Intel 8085 processor, cost $9000, and came out in July 1981. The IBM PC had a 16-bit 8088 processor, cost $1565, and came out a month later. So there was no reason to buy a Datamaster
There's a good description of Datamaster in "A Personal History of the IBM PC" by Dave Bradley (one of the PC's designers). Unfortunately, it's paywalled.[1]
Man. I love the design of old terminals, computers, and such.
I am, also, extremely glad that these form factors were abandoned. Having an old terminal, it is possibly the least ergonomic machine I have ever used.
One theory I saw argued the punch card size was the reason for 80x24. But why were punch cards that size? They were designed off of the cards used for the census. Why were the census cards that size? Because they were modeled after the dollar bill size.
I do love thought experiments like this but do believe they’re insatiably unresolvable.
And the reason they were modeled after the dollar bill size is because there were already many types of systems for storing and organizing them. That came in handy for the census.
The old BBC Connections series has a segment with James Burke using the old census tabulators.
Deeply fascinated by these historical threads. It is precisely the various design choices made throughout history that have shaped the computer systems we use today.
You know, this is funny because QBasic did not use EDIT.COM. Instead, QBasic was the editor and EDIT.COM was a simple program that called "QBASIC /EDIT" :-)
[1] https://www.righto.com/2018/01/xerox-alto-zero-day-cracking-...
The IBM Datamaster is an interesting system, but it was doomed. It had an 8-bit Intel 8085 processor, cost $9000, and came out in July 1981. The IBM PC had a 16-bit 8088 processor, cost $1565, and came out a month later. So there was no reason to buy a Datamaster
There's a good description of Datamaster in "A Personal History of the IBM PC" by Dave Bradley (one of the PC's designers). Unfortunately, it's paywalled.[1]
[1] https://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2011.163
> To avoid these astronomical prices, some computers used the cheaper alternative of shift register memory.
Might be a direction for 2026 too?
I am, also, extremely glad that these form factors were abandoned. Having an old terminal, it is possibly the least ergonomic machine I have ever used.
I do love thought experiments like this but do believe they’re insatiably unresolvable.
The old BBC Connections series has a segment with James Burke using the old census tabulators.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6yL0_sDnX0&t=2640s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_BASIC#/media/File%3AIBM_Ca... (IBM BASIC screenshot)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_Editor#/media/File%3AMS...
I was surprised by how claustrophobic it felt to only see 21 lines of code in e.g. Turbo Pascal 7.0. Still didn’t like the squashed 80x43 mode.
https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/c38a28c3-84c3-ba28-1011-c3...
Then I remembered how larger displays and xterm felt like such a liberation a few years later.