
Good Idea Bad Idea Gets on the Bus
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Dan Knight
- 2002.11.15 The personal computing industry began with standard parts: Intel's
new CPU, memory chips, etc. From there, it sometimes diverged in
interesting directions. Today Good Idea Bad Idea looks at what happens when a computer
maker gets on the wrong bus. Good IdeaUse readily available CPUs, memory chips, interfaces, buses, and
so forth to build a PC with minimal R&D expense. Successes: The Apple II series, a host of CP/M computers, the IBM
PC, and a legion of PC clones. Bad IdeaTrying to kill off the clones with a proprietary architecture -
even if it is better. Failure: IBM's amazingly over-engineered Micro Channel
Architecture. MCA had much greater bandwidth than the AT bus used
in PC clones and even allowed bus mastering, but even IBM wasn't big
enough to lead the industry in this direction. Still, several MCA
innovations eventually made their way into today's PCI bus. Failure: Adoption of the emerging NuBus architecture in the
Apple Macintosh II,
NeXT Cube, and
nothing else anyone remembers. Compared to the industry standard
8 MHz 16-bit bus used in PC clones, the 10 MHz 32-bit NuBus was
good enough for Apple to ride from 1987 to late 1995, but convincing
vendors to make cards for an almost proprietary bus on a minority
hardware platform wasn't easy. NuBus didn't doom the Mac, but Apple's
adoption of the PCI bus in 1995 was a much smarter move. ConclusionTeamwork pays off. The broadest success comes from following a
widely accepted standard, such as ISA, PCI, and AGP.
- <this article
available in a printer friendly format>
<home>Good Idea Bad
Idea was inspired by a few too many
episodes of Animaniacs - if there is such a thing. GIBI is an
irreverent look back that the history of computing in the hopes that
we'll learn from the mistakes of the past rather than repeat
them. Recent Good Idea Bad Idea ColumnsOther Recent Content on LEPC- Value and cost: With a PC, you
get what you pay for, Katherine Keller, Thinking From the Box,
02.26. With the right choices, your PC can be easy to upgrade and
avoid becoming a doorstop.
- Networking 101, Dan
Knight, Online Tech Journal, 02.10. An introduction to ethernet,
hubs, switches, routers, and wireless networking.
- Pixels and points, screens and
paper, Dan Knight, Online Tech Journal, 02.06. What you see on
the screen corresponds to what you get on the printed page. A
brief history of points, pixels, and the changing face of computer
displays.
- Deliver us from evil: Thoughts
on computer self defense, Dan Knight, The Knight Line, 01.16.
"Should you have the right to take active steps to stop a
computerized attack on your computer system?"
- Why we need anti-spam
legislation, Dan Knight, The Knight Line, 01.02. "Unlike rain,
sending spam is a human behavior which can and should be covered
by law."
- Tying up loose ends on bitty
boxen, Buttercup, and the state of tech, Michelle
Klein-Häss, Geek Speak, 12.02. Mandrake Linux rocks,
Buttercup gets a new motherboard, and the sorry state of the tech
sector today.
- more in our editorial
archive
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Bad Idea articles ©2002 by Cobweb Publishing.
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