[ale] [OT] nostalgia - Happy 30th birthday IBM PC

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Tue, Oct 04, 2011 at 12:31:19PM -0400, Ron Frazier wrote:
> Let's compare the IBM PC to the laptop I'm typing this on.
>
> Price (today's dollars) - PC - $ 7,527 - LT - $ 380 - LT is 19 X LESS
> expensive
> CPU Speed - PC - 4.7 MHz - LT - 2181 MHz dual core - LT is 928 X FASTER
> RAM - PC - 64 KB (that's KILO, not Mega, not Giga) - LT - 8 GB (OK so I
> upgraded the memory.)
>     If I'm doing the math right, 64 KB is .000061 GB, so LT has 131,148
> X MORE MEMORY
> Removable storage: PC - 5 1/4" floppy @ 160 KB or .0001525 GB - LT -
> assume 4 GB memory stick - LT has 26,230 X MORE removable storage
> Hard Drive - PC - NONE - LT - 500 GB - LT has INFINITE MORE HDD
>
> I don't remember the specs on the old RGB monitors, probably 80 x 40
> characters of 8 bit color characters.  I could look it up, but this
> will make the point.  If the characters were a 7 x 9 matrix of
> pixels, that would mean approximately 560 pixels wide in graphics
> mode and approximately 360 pixels down.  That's a total of 201,600
> pixels of 256 colors.  Someone else may correct my numbers if
> they're wrong.

In the early PC days, there were two types of video cards.  You had
text display cards, and graphics display cards.

The original model 5150 IBM PC came with either MDA (text) or CGA
(graphics) cards.  The MDA supported 80x25 text mode (often referred
to as PC video mode #7) only.  It had a whopping 4KiB of memory.  The
CGA card, which if memory serves was the more popular option becuase
it could display not only graphics, but color, had 16 KiB of RAM.  It
had 40x25 and 80x25 text modes and if memory serves, it was in the
80-column mode by default.

It had 2 graphics modes, 320x200 and 640x200.  (Those graphics modes
were actually also used to implement the text modes, if memory
serves.)  The CGA fonts were ugly, too (that is, uglier than the VGA
family of fonts, which are also ugly...)

> LT has 1366 x 768 pixels or 1,049,088 pixels of 32 bits which is
> millions of colors.  So the LT has 5 X MORE PIXELS.
>
> Like I said, times sure have changed.  I wish we could do this with
> automotive technology.  I could own a nice Rolls Royce for, say,
> $5000!

As the joke goes...

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >
> If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving >
> cars with the following characteristics:				 >
> 									 >
> 1. For no reason at all, your car would crash twice a day.		 >
> 									 >
> 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to	 >
> buy a new car.							 >
> 									 >
> 3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuver such as a left-turn would cause >
> your car to shut down and refuse to restart, and you would have to	 >
> reinstall the engine.							 >
> 									 >
> 4. When your car died on the freeway for no reason, you would just	 >
> accept this, restart and drive on.					 >
> 									 >
> 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought	 >
> 'Car95' or 'CarNT', and then added more seats.			 >
> 									 >
> 6. Apple would make a car powered by the sun, reliable, five times as	 >
> fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would run on only five per cent	 >
> of the roads.								 >
> 									 >
> 7. Oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be	 >
> replaced by a single 'general car default' warning light.		 >
> 									 >
> 8. New seats would force every-one to have the same size butt.	 >
> 									 >
> 9. The airbag would say 'Are you sure?' before going off.		 >
> 									 >
> 10. Occasionally, for no reason, your car would lock you out and	 >
> refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle,	 >
> turned the key, and grabbed the radio antenna.			 >
> 									 >
> 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of	 >
> road maps from Rand-McNally (a subsidiary of GM), even though they	 >
> neither need them nor want them. Trying to delete this option would	 >
> immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50 per cent or	 >
> more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the	 >
> Justice Department.							 >
> 									 >
> 12. Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to	 >
> learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would	 >
> operate in the same manner as the old car.				 >
> 									 >
> 13. You would press the 'start' button to shut off the engine.	 >
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >

	--- Mike