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1. Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:23:44 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

   I wonder: if you showed IBM executives what happens with the PC, would they still greenlight it?

   Because they lost control of it pretty quick (the IBM PS/2 was a failed attempt to get control back, and that was only 6 years on) and then from then on they were only one fish in an increasingly bigger pond. And then PC-likes took over the workstation/server markets too, so their minicomputers and mainframes lost a lot too

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:25:34 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     although you could always argue that in the world where IBM decided not to make a PC, we'd all be using mac-compatibles or atari-compatibles or amiga-compatibles in 2024

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:32:22 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     I don't think there's realistically a world where we get to today with one or two companies making all the personal computers and maintaining control over that ecosystem. Somebody makes a good computer that gets cloned, the clones get cloned, and we get a ton of compatibles from endless interchangeable companies.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:33:43 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     (The fact that we're currently in a semi-duopoly state with smartphones notwithstanding)

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:40:26 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Noam

     @noam yeah that's what I'm thinking. If the IBM PC doesn't exist as the obvious computer to clone, we end up cloning a different computer and everyone's running Commodore-compatibles in 2024 instead

   • Noam (noam@beige.party)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:40:27 JST Noam

     in reply to

     @foone If they didn't make it, wouldn't someone else?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 06:44:19 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     it's 2024, we're all running CP/M 40 or LiGNUx on our 64-bit S-100+ computers

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 07:09:37 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Hugo Mills

     @darkling cm-10?

   • Hugo Mills (darkling@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 07:09:38 JST Hugo Mills

     in reply to

     @foone Is that with or without the CM-10 coprocessor?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 08:05:23 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Charlie Stross

     @cstross a dream. a world with a lot less microsoft in it

   • Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Tuesday, 30-Jan-2024 08:05:24 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     @foone I'm more partial to the world in which IBM take a year or two longer to make the PC and it surfaces with a 68020, a 20Mb hard disk, and runs Xenix, or a clone like MWC Coherent. Added lulz: VMEBus. A year or two later, the PC030 surfaces, with built-in ethernet and a 68030. A small upstart called Sun Microsystems brings out a frame buffer and graphics accelerator to turn it into an X11 workstation—

     Everything is delayed a couple of years but then the year of UNIX on the desktop is 1988.