The Channel has similar video series on OS/2, VisiCalc, Microsoft Excel and early Windows (far from completion). The videos are generally very detailed and well researched, often contrasting accounts from different source or even reaching out to people involved.
The already slow pace of the channel has slowed down a lot. In an update video a while back, the author has announced that the background research for the IBM PC led down an unexpectedly deep rabbit hole and his script eventually spiraled into an unfinished book that will now probably turn into a two-parter itself.
I didn’t pay much attention to the PC at that point (I was programming Lispms, Dorados and KL-20s) but it was impossible to ignore.
I had exaggerated my knowledge (and my boss clearly knew that) so I skipped school the next few days and dug into the amazing manuals and got up to speed on DOS, on Clipper (a DBASE III compiler), and edlin and finished the task in a couple of weeks.
I took the pay and bought the computer and wrote Clipper programs for the next few years. Those nights spent staring at amber text were so satisfying. I’m very grateful to have been given that opportunity.
This was such a common experience for devs in these days! Even very experienced devs like Andy Hertzfeld talk about building software in exchange for hardware. We would have just spent the money on sw/hw, so it was just simpler :)
A giant, god-like hand reaching out from the clouds. Tagline "THE JOLLY GIANT DELIVERS THE GOODS".
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1706/Personal-Comput...
But I really did love the IBM PC. And very sad about Don Estridge and his wife - if he had joined Apple they might still be alive today.
I much preferred the
« raucous bazaar, teeming with variety. »
I hate the way the PC
« the IBM PC and its successors paved over all of that »
I really did not like...
« he strange boxes at the electronics store labeled “Amiga” and “Atari ST” (the last gasps of dying giants) »
That is not merely unfair, it's wrong.
It's a very American viewpoint. I only discovered in recent years that in the rest of the world, the Amiga and ST did much better than at home.
I was a kid when this happened. The Mac launched when I was... 15 I think?
To a rounding error, nobody owned PCs in the UK. They were extremely expensive business machines. Nobody owned Apple II either, and Macs were for the seriously rich.
We used Sinclair and Oric and Acorn and other brands American writers have never even heard about. We aspired to Camputers and Elan and Memotech.
Nobody _wanted_ office equipment. Would you offer a child a stapler to play with? That's how fun the PC was.
Amigas were huge and very desirable and seen as a gift from the future -- see this article from 2 days ago:
https://dfarq.homeip.net/amiga-1000-ten-years-ahead-of-its-t...
If you couldn't afford an Amiga, then the ST was a worthy competitor.
They were not some flop, some footnote of history. You can still buy new Amiga compatibles today from loads of vendors...
https://www.apollo-computer.com/v4standalone.php
https://www.a1200.com/index.php/the-a1200-ng/
The ST OS became FOSS and there are multiple modern versions:
https://emutos.sourceforge.io/
https://gitlab.com/AndreasK/Atari-Mac-MagiC-Sources
And don't neglect the Acorn Archimedes which stomped on both.
Its OS is FOSS now.
https://www.riscosopen.org/content/
Runs natively on Raspberry Pi. Other compatible new machines are being made and sold:
https://shop.elesar.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&pr...
Sinclair's QL hardware still has compatible machines made today:
https://www.specnext.com/sinclair_ql-qs/
https://sinclairql.net/djw/q68/index.html
This stuff was nothing to be banished to a footnote, dusty unsold boxes with weird names or whatever.