Different post-1984 Computer Industry

[danielb1]

It's gonna take awhile before I get to the WI on this...

I was able to check out a copy of "The Personal Computer Handbook, Newly Revised and Expanded", from 1984 (!), from my school library. It's by Peter A. McWilliams, who was also known for "The Word Processing Handbook" and was apparently somewhat of a guru on computers and such in the early-mid 1980s. One chapter has a bunch of computers on the market and their comparative features and prices, and his opinions on them - including on such systems as the IBM PC (which he approves of) and the original Macintosh (of which he was rather skeptical). There's also a printer chapter, with only one inkjet printer, the rest being mostly dot-matrix or daisy-wheel with a few 'thimble' printers (?) and no laser ones.

Some brands listed are still in the Computer business, like Apple, Toshiba, HP and Compaq. Others aren't but are still around, like Radio Shack, Xerox, Zenith, or Epson. Some have faded but I've heard of, like Commodore, Atari, or Kaypro. And some... Eagle, Morrow, Victor, Columbia, Lanier, TeleVideo,... I'd never even heard of them. Mr. McWilliams especially seemed taken by the PC-compatible Victors and the CP/M-based Morrows - he specifically praised the Morrow MD-11 in comparison to a Macintosh, in fact.

I amusingly looked at some of the tech descriptions (Mr. McWilliams was very worried about the possibility of taking a Kaypro 10 around, as it could damage the data on its gigantic 10 megabyte hard drive... the most standard memory any machine had was the pricey Apple Lisa's 512k). There was also an uproarious cacaphony of keyboard styles - anywhere from 56 to 108 keys, with arrangements all over the place, especially for often-missing F keys (and computers could have anywhere from 2 to 36 'function' keys...). Many of the 'portable' computers weighed 30 pounds...

Anyway, one thing this McWilliams guy did do was make a series of statements on his opinion on how computers were and how they were going. One thing, he was convinced that the iBM PC standard had already won out, and that pretty much everything from that point on would be occuring on IBM-compatible machines (he was pretty much right on that). Some other predictions and him giving his opinion...
- He was impressed, for the most part, with the Coleco Adam - a home computer with excellent support for video games and word processing. He did mention it had issues with defects, and he said that they might be around much longer if that continues. Well.. the Adam was one of the biggest flops in computer history.
- Less successfully, he predicted the IBM PCjr would be a success, mainly because it was an IBM (apparently "IBM" was a magical acronym back then). He admired its wireless keyboard (even if he did mention that secretarys would disapprove of its 'chicklets' appearance). Well... the PCjr also flopped.
-Four computers that McWilliams specifically approved of: the TeleVideo Tele-PC (with pretty good looks, and a keyboard with a built-in wrist-rest), the Victor 9000 (good scren, good keyboard, IBM compatible), the Epson QX-10 (high-feautre 'Valdocs' word processor, a system clock with a battery, and - get this - a screen blanker and long file name support), and the aforementioned Morrow MD-11 (11 megabyte hard disk on computer that's only $2995).
-McWilliams was very skeptical of the Macintosh. First off, he wasn't really into mice. Secondly, he was rather hard on the Mac's flaws: no numeric keypad on the keyboard, lack of expandability, incompatibility with every other computer out there, no color, and not accepting a letter-quality printer. His only real praise was for the MacPaint graphics program, which he thought great for architects and designers. He suggested buying a Mac only if 500,000 were sold the first year and a million the next (setting a standard)... He generally does not seem to like Apples, considering them overpriced, and commenting on how almost every feature of the Apple IIe was duplicated in the Commodore 64 for less than half the price.
-He does talk about the decline of Texas Instrument's and Xerox's computer divisions. Also, recently-bankrupt Osborne did not make an appearance.
-He does admire the Compaq for being the most 'IBM-compatible' of the IBM compatibles of the era. I remember my parent's first computer was a Compaq of a more recent vintage.
-Lastly, he was wondering if Sinclair could get a distributor for its miniature computers since Timex bowed out. He suggested Sears or JC Penny. (In reality, this never happened, and Sinclairs stopped being sold in the US).

so, the question is: what if some of Mr. McWilliams' predictions and recommendations get followed?

So... a successful IBM PCjr, IBM retaining its market position, Macs largely flop, PCs still becoming dominant except perhaps with Commodore instead of Apple being the last hold-out, Apple having Commodore and the Sears Sinclair eat it for lunch at the low end and IBM clones from the high, and less widespread acceptance of the mouse. Oh, and such brands as Kaypro, Morrow, Victor, Epson, and TeleVideo retain their market presence in PCs.

How different would computing in such a TL be? From the sound of it, its less graphics. Failed Mac + dominant PC means that, if there's even a graphical revolution at all, it's in the hands of Commodore or Atari or someone. Also, fewer mice might mean an even slower adaptation of graphical OSes. So its MS-DOS city for awhile. Unless UNIX becomes more dominant, or by some fluke OS/2 succeeds...
I do wonder what this does to Dell, Gateway, and other later computer manufacturers...
Also, the major word processors he mentions (being a Word Processor person) are WordStar, Perfect Writer, EasyWriter, and Valdocs, among others. WordPerfect and Word aren't on the scene, Word wasn't around yet and WordPerfect hadn't made it big. WI Microsoft stays in the OS and Programming Language fields (with an odd foray into video games like its flight simulator) and doesn't break into the Office Suite market, and also WI WordPerfect never makes it big?

 

[MaxKaladin]

So, I hope I'm not the only person here to actually live through this stuff.

So... a successful IBM PCjr, IBM retaining its market position, Macs largely flop, PCs still becoming dominant except perhaps with Commodore instead of Apple being the last hold-out, Apple having Commodore and the Sears Sinclair eat it for lunch at the low end and IBM clones from the high, and less widespread acceptance of the mouse. Oh, and such brands as Kaypro, Morrow, Victor, Epson, and TeleVideo retain their market presence in PCs.

How different would computing in such a TL be? From the sound of it, its less graphics. Failed Mac + dominant PC means that, if there's even a graphical revolution at all, it's in the hands of Commodore or Atari or someone. Also, fewer mice might mean an even slower adaptation of graphical OSes. So its MS-DOS city for awhile. Unless UNIX becomes more dominant, or by some fluke OS/2 succeeds...

Graphics would still be popular. In 1985, the Commodore Amiga was released with very high quality (for the time) color graphics, a GUI and a mouse -- and it had been in development for some years at that point so I doubt the Mac flopping would affect it. The PCjr had better graphics than the regular PC and Tandy had a line of PC clones that emulated these graphics that were reasonably popular. The PC-AT had the ability to use an EGA graphics card about this time that gave much better color graphics than the regular PC. Other systems were improving their graphics capabilities as well. I think you'd still see graphics and GUIs come into use, but if the Mac flopped it would probably have been via people copying the Amiga, which itself might not have been discontinued in the early 90s. Windows would probably still have come around as Microsoft was developing it about the time the Mac was released (based on having seen pre-release versions of it).

MS DOS may remain dominant or may get replaced. It's hard to tell. Windows as an OS and not an overlay for MSDos came in about 1995 and the popularity of the Amiga interface, assiming that happened, may have caused it to come at about the same time or even earlier in this TL.

You will have to see a shakeout in the computer market. The big problem was getting software. If you had a dominant brand like the Apple, C64 or the PC/clones, you could probably find software fairly easily . If you had some obscure machine like a kaypro, you were out of luck. There was no internet or anything to download from. You might get code in a magazine to type in or trade with someone you knew or buy by mail, but you weren't going to get much. In my opinion, that's the factor that led to most of the different computer brands falling by the wayside.

I do wonder what this does to Dell, Gateway, and other later computer manufacturers...

Not much, I imagine. The big advantage of the PC (IMO) was the fact that it was open and others could make and sell compatible hardware. I'm sure they'd still pop up just like they did in OTL.

Also, the major word processors he mentions (being a Word Processor person) are WordStar, Perfect Writer, EasyWriter, and Valdocs, among others. WordPerfect and Word aren't on the scene, Word wasn't around yet and WordPerfect hadn't made it big. WI Microsoft stays in the OS and Programming Language fields (with an odd foray into video games like its flight simulator) and doesn't break into the Office Suite market, and also WI WordPerfect never makes it big?

Wordstar was the big player back then. Those others might have had some following, but Wordstar was the Microsoft of word processors back then. Without competition from Word, it may have remained on top of the "serious" word processor market with others playing keepup. However, I expect they might have gotten complacent and been knocked out of first place by some other word processor. Ditto for Wordperfect. I seem to recall that Lotus came out with a word processor back in the late 80s/early 90s called AmiPro that enjoyed some popularity. Perhaps it would have been bigger.

It should be noted that the idea of the office suite was not unique to Microsoft. Even at the time the book you're talking about was written, integrated suites existed. Tandy had a suite that I don't remember the name of that incorporated word processing, spreadsheet and some simple database capability. I know the Tandy version was pretty bare bones and was intended to be bundled with the computers as freebies, but others came out and were getting more complex as the 80s turned into the 90s. Microsoft had their own version of these called "Microsoft Works" that was seperate from Office (I think it's even still around). Anyway, I remember two or three of these, but can't remember what they were called. If there were no Office, some other suite may have become dominant. However, these things tended to be for home use with "serious" users using one of the standalone products so without microsoft pushing Office they may have remained the domain of home users with more complex standalone software being dominant in the workplace.

 

[danielb1]

So, I hope I'm not the only person here to actually live through this stuff.

I'm sure some others have. I didn't - the book is older than I am.

Graphics would still be popular. In 1985, the Commodore Amiga was released with very high quality (for the time) color graphics, a GUI and a mouse -- and it had been in development for some years at that point so I doubt the Mac flopping would affect it. The PCjr had better graphics than the regular PC and Tandy had a line of PC clones that emulated these graphics that were reasonably popular. The PC-AT had the ability to use an EGA graphics card about this time that gave much better color graphics than the regular PC. Other systems were improving their graphics capabilities as well. I think you'd still see graphics and GUIs come into use, but if the Mac flopped it would probably have been via people copying the Amiga, which itself might not have been discontinued in the early 90s. Windows would probably still have come around as Microsoft was developing it about the time the Mac was released (based on having seen pre-release versions of it).

I know the Amiga was in development then. Butterflies, though, might result in it either in the original Amiga corp. not being bought up and dying, being bought up by Atari, or surviiving as an independent. I think DESQView might come out as well, as its predecessor TopView existed then.

I'm less certain about GEM, PC-GEOS, and other myriad systems.

One possibility is that menu-based shells, things a little like DOS shell and all the various 3rd-party shells, get a longer life. An 'in-between', slotting between fully GUI systems and command prompts. Hell, Windows 1.0 was almost like that...

MS DOS may remain dominant or may get replaced. It's hard to tell. Windows as an OS and not an overlay for MSDos came in about 1995 and the popularity of the Amiga interface, assiming that happened, may have caused it to come at about the same time or even earlier in this TL.

Windows was in development, but a failed Mac might delay it further, or perhaps Microsoft cancels it (OTL's Windows 1.0 flopped) or folds it in as a GUI for OS/2...

You will have to see a shakeout in the computer market. The big problem was getting software. If you had a dominant brand like the Apple, C64 or the PC/clones, you could probably find software fairly easily . If you had some obscure machine like a kaypro, you were out of luck. There was no internet or anything to download from. You might get code in a magazine to type in or trade with someone you knew or buy by mail, but you weren't going to get much. In my opinion, that's the factor that led to most of the different computer brands falling by the wayside.

Were Kaypros really so obscure? I'd be more concerned about other brands like Lanier or Jonos, also mentioned in the book.

But many of the brands mentioned (Columbia, Eagle, TeleVideo, Victor) made at least semi-IBM-compatible computers. Where'd they go?

Also its very possible some companies could transition to PCs, the way Radio Shack / Tandy did.

Not much, I imagine. The big advantage of the PC (IMO) was the fact that it was open and others could make and sell compatible hardware. I'm sure they'd still pop up just like they did in OTL.

Similar ones? No doubt. The very same ones? Probably not. Keep in mind the butterfly effect.

Wordstar was the big player back then. Those others might have had some following, but Wordstar was the Microsoft of word processors back then. Without competition from Word, it may have remained on top of the "serious" word processor market with others playing keepup. However, I expect they might have gotten complacent and been knocked out of first place by some other word processor. Ditto for Wordperfect. I seem to recall that Lotus came out with a word processor back in the late 80s/early 90s called AmiPro that enjoyed some popularity. Perhaps it would have been bigger.

Most of the non-Wordstar processors came packaged with various computers; the book listed various included ones. Valdocs in particular sounded farily neat - advanced features by the standards of the day. Of course, it was also supposed to be rather slow.

I've heard of Ami Pro, and wouldn't be suprised if Lotus introduced it as OTL (possibly furthering IBM supremacy, which will be a bigger issue in this TL?).

It should be noted that the idea of the office suite was not unique to Microsoft. Even at the time the book you're talking about was written, integrated suites existed. Tandy had a suite that I don't remember the name of that incorporated word processing, spreadsheet and some simple database capability. I know the Tandy version was pretty bare bones and was intended to be bundled with the computers as freebies, but others came out and were getting more complex as the 80s turned into the 90s. Microsoft had their own version of these called "Microsoft Works" that was seperate from Office (I think it's even still around). Anyway, I remember two or three of these, but can't remember what they were called. If there were no Office, some other suite may have become dominant. However, these things tended to be for home use with "serious" users using one of the standalone products so without microsoft pushing Office they may have remained the domain of home users with more complex standalone software being dominant in the workplace.

I'm not saying Microsoft made the market. I'm saying that they entered the market and came to dominate it. Of course there'll be your other systems, like SmartSuite or Appleworks or PFS: First Choice or even Wordperfect Ensemble or whatever the heck it was called. They just weren't common in early 1984.

If i make a TL of this, I might keep Wordperfect as a competitor to WordStar, and perhaps have an Apple, with its Mac being less successful. decide to transition their GUI to IBM-compatible systems. One avenue I'd like to see is Apple gaining an earlier hand in 'non-conventional' items, perhaps a successful Apple Newton, earlier iPod, more software-related stuff, etc.

 

[MaxKaladin]

I'm sure some others have. I didn't - the book is older than I am.

I feel old.

I know the Amiga was in development then. Butterflies, though, might result in it either in the original Amiga corp. not being bought up and dying, being bought up by Atari, or surviiving as an independent.

That's true. It depends on your POD though. According to Wikipedia, Commodore bought Amiga in August of 1984. I'd say it's pretty likely it would come out but it's future would be uncertain.

I think DESQView might come out as well, as its predecessor TopView existed then.

I'm less certain about GEM, PC-GEOS, and other myriad systems.

I haven't thought of those in years!

One possibility is that menu-based shells, things a little like DOS shell and all the various 3rd-party shells, get a longer life. An 'in-between', slotting between fully GUI systems and command prompts. Hell, Windows 1.0 was almost like that...

Oh, I remember menu-based shells. I tried a number of those things through the 80s and into the early 90s.

I also had Windows 1.0. I bought it on the clearance rack of a computer store in January of 1987 then got slammed by a blizzard on the way home -- and I lived in central Texas. I wonder if that meant something...

Anyway, All versions of windows up to Windows 95 were basically shells. I had 1.0, "/286" and a couple of variants of the 3.x versions. They all basically sat on top of MSDOS. Windows 95 was the first version of Windows to be a true standalone operating system.

Windows was in development, but a failed Mac might delay it further, or perhaps Microsoft cancels it (OTL's Windows 1.0 flopped) or folds it in as a GUI for OS/2...

As I recall, the first version of OS/2 was pretty awful as well so the whole thing might have flopped.

Were Kaypros really so obscure? I'd be more concerned about other brands like Lanier or Jonos, also mentioned in the book.

It's hard to say. From my perspective at the time, they were incredibly obscure. You had the PC & clones, the Apple II, the various TRS-80s, the C-64, the Vic-20, the Atari computers, the PCjr and the Mac as the computers that you really heard about and saw in people's homes and businesses. They Kaypro was out there, but I don't remember ever seeing one, seeing them or software for them on sale anywhere or knowing anyone who had one. It was a CP/M machine. CP/M was uncommon and on the way out in 1984. I know they had a following, but it wasn't anything like what those other computers had.

I've never even heard of those other two.

But many of the brands mentioned (Columbia, Eagle, TeleVideo, Victor) made at least semi-IBM-compatible computers. Where'd they go?

The problem with the semi-clones was that they weren't real clones. They all had various quirks that caused problems when you tried to use IBM-compatable software on them. I couldn't tell you what any specific one of those did, but I expect most of them and faded into obscurity, got bought out or went out of business (or some combination of those). Also see what I say below about the "premium" marketing strategy.

Also its very possible some companies could transition to PCs, the way Radio Shack / Tandy did.

A lot of companies tried. The problem was a lot of them did it badly or too late. A common problem, from my perspective, is that a lot of them tried to go with a "premium" marketing strategy -- you weren't just buying a computer, you were buying a {whatever} (and paying for the name). They'd set up a network of dealers and generally tried to build a business on a brand name. It sort of worked for IBM, but not for most the copycats. As generic parts became more common they got shut out of the market by local computer stores putting together off the shelf parts and selling the resulting computers cheap to a public that really didn't care much who put their name on the machine as long as it worked.

Similar ones? No doubt. The very same ones? Probably not. Keep in mind the butterfly effect.

Well, the specifics would change but I think the same sort of market niche they fit would emerge.

I'm not saying Microsoft made the market. I'm saying that they entered the market and came to dominate it. Of course there'll be your other systems, like SmartSuite or Appleworks or PFS: First Choice or even Wordperfect Ensemble or whatever the heck it was called. They just weren't common in early 1984.

None of them were. What I think Microsoft did that was special was move the suite from being something for home users and small businesses to being something that large corporations would put on their desktop. Prior to office, big corporations tended to use standalone software like Wordstar in preference to packages.

If i make a TL of this, I might keep Wordperfect as a competitor to WordStar, and perhaps have an Apple, with its Mac being less successful. decide to transition their GUI to IBM-compatible systems. One avenue I'd like to see is Apple gaining an earlier hand in 'non-conventional' items, perhaps a successful Apple Newton, earlier iPod, more software-related stuff, etc.

 

[Nik]

BBC Micro.

Um, don't forget the much lamented Acorn BBC_Micro...

IIRC, it caused quite a stir in BYTE survey by out-running many 'serious' computers.

Thing was the 'interpreted' BBC_BASIC was 'tokenised', so ran like greased lightning, easily on a par with many compiled languages. To add insult to injury, the BASIC included a full symbolic assembler, so you could write machine-code without breaking sweat.

Also, you could add all-sorts to a BBC box-- The case was *covered* in connectors. Extra memory, second processors, a complete external computer, networking, drop-in program-chips, voice synthesiser etc etc.

Then the gorgeous Acorn Archimedes came along. To start with, it could emulate BBC_Micro, so was back-compatible. As 'A' had a full Unix look&feel licence, it was immune from the WIMP wars. The RISC_OS was 'orthogonal', truly 'plug & play'. To install software, you just dragged the top directory across. Anything would run from anywhere. Hardware carried its own drivers on-board. Plug in, switch on, it works. Okay, you could add software upgrades & utilities etc, but the essentials were always there.

At the time, A's inexpensive 3rd-party 'office' package made MS Works look silly, and could actually read those files...

A's RISC processor was so nimble it could emulate a PC in software at ~10% native -- in a window !! I actually ran PCW cover-disks on it, taught myself QBASIC, QuickBASIC and 'Easy-as123' etc etc...

I remember a PC diagnostics program cheerfully reporting, 'Unknown processor, perhaps emulator ?', 'No Hercules card within.' and 'Math Co-Processor Present.'

I was getting around to buying an '86_card to run work-related stuff at full speed when Acorn crashed...

Also, don't forget Occam & Transputer, which would have allowed multi-processor pipe-lining and multi-threading long before PC graphics cards discovered the knack, and put 1/2/4/8/16 close-coupled CPUs on inexpensive add-on boards with scalable, asynchronous architecture. Think 'CELL' multi-processor, as in latest gamer box, but 20 years ago...

Now weep...

 

[tinfoil]

Here's a POD that could make a big difference...

From a hostory of DOS

As for an operating system (OS) for the new computers, since Microsoft had never written an operating system before, Gates had suggested that IBM investigate an OS called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers), written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research. Kindall had his Ph.D. in computers and had written the most successful operating system of the time, selling over 600,000 copies of CP/M, his OS set the standard at that time.

IBM tried to contact Kildall for a meeting, executives met with Mrs. Kildall who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. IBM soon returned to Bill Gates and gave Microsoft the contract to write the new operating system, one that would eventually wipe Kildall's CP/M out of common use.

The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer.

QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M, Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks, QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal.

Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer Products.

Gates then talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights, to market MS DOS separate from the IBM PC project, Gates proceeded to make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.

So, either have IBM select CP/M as its OS, or habe IBM insist on owned the rights to DOS. At the time, IBM was a multibillion congolmerate, and Bill Gates was just a business-savvy poor programmer.

Now what?...

 

[danielb1]

Problem with Acorn and BBC is that this is an American guide and, except for the Sinclair, I don't think British computers ever really sold here in the states. Therefore, the book doesn't mention them.

However, Acorn surviving is quite plausible. It would be especially interesting if they ever tried to break into the US market with RISC computers.

There's another possible avenue: in OTL, everyone in the 80s was expecting Japan to come out with new 'fifth generation' computers that would eat everyone's lunch. Never happened. Could the Japanese have taken a more important position in computers than OTL?

Also, one thing I've wondered about is the 'dirt-cheap' computer market ie Commodore VIC-20s, Sinclairs, and the like. WI they didn't dissolve into the mist? Could $99 or $199 computers have remained available (not counting the brief fad of offering cheap or free computers but charging like a bandit for mandatory internet)? I'm thinking either proprietary hardware or outdated PC stuff (say 8086s in the early 90s, 486s in 1996/7, etc), perhaps with bubble memory instead of a hard disk?

 

[DuQuense]

Anyway, All versions of windows up to Windows 95 were basically shells. I had 1.0, "/286" and a couple of variants of the 3.x versions. They all basically sat on top of MSDOS. Windows 95 was the first version of Windows to be a true standalone operating system.

95 is just a shell over dos 6.0 and 98 a shell over dos 7.0, except that MS wrote the program to install both the Dos and the shell at the same time,
Unlike 3.1, where you install the Dos, and then the 3.1 Shell.

You can extract the dos 7.0 from win 98 with a simple program. And I am hoping that someone comes up with a simple program to extract Dos 8.0 from the Windows ME Shell.

There is a Story that Gates was at a computor show, where the New GEM GUI Shell for DOS was being demostrated, he immediatly returned to Seattle and set his programmers to duplicate it. Even So GEM was outselling Windows till Gates got some of the other Software companies like Intuit to stop writing their programs to use Multiple Dosshells.

 

[marl_d]

98 wasn't a shell anymore than ME, XP, and Vista are shells, DOS was phased out with 6.0, after that it's just a Command terminal in XP and Vista