Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
in future MS-DOS versions as well. In 1991, Novell acquired DR-DOS, followed by Caldera
in 1996 (who released a version of the source code under an open-source license), followed
by Lineo in 1998, and finally by DRDOS (
www.drdos.com
) in 2002.
Free and open-source DOS versions have been independently produced, upgraded, and
maintained by the DR-DOS/OpenDOS Enhancement Project (
www.drdosprojects.de
) as well
as the FreeDOS Project (
www.freedos.org
)
.
Note
From 1996 to 1997, an effort was made by the more liberated thinkers at Apple to license its
BIOS/OS combination, and several Mac-compatible machines were developed, produced, and
sold. Companies such as Sony, Power Computing, Radius, and even Motorola invested
millions of dollars in developing these systems, but shortly after these first Mac clones were
sold, Apple canceled the licensing! By canceling these licenses, Apple virtually guaranteed
that its systems would not be competitive with Windows-based PCs. Along with its smaller
market share come much higher system costs, fewer available software applications, and fewer
options for hardware repair, replacement, and upgrades as compared to PCs. The proprietary
form factors also ensure that major components such as motherboards, power supplies, and
cases are available only from Apple at high prices, making out-of-warranty repair,
replacement, and upgrades of these components not cost effective.
Now that Apple has converted its Mac systems to PC architecture, the only difference between a Mac
and a PC is the OS they run, so a PC running OS X essentially becomes a Mac, whereas a Mac
running Windows becomes a PC. This means that the only thing keeping Mac systems unique, beyond
its design style, is the ability to run OS X. To this end, Apple includes code in OS X that checks for
an Apple-specific security chip, thus preventing OS X from running on non-Apple PCs. Although this
does create an incentive to buy Apple-brand PCs, it also overlooks the huge market for selling OS X
to non-Apple PC users. For example, if Apple had sold OS X to PC users while Microsoft was
delaying the release of Vista, OS X would have taken a large amount of market share from Windows.
Note
Despite Apple's attempts to prevent OS X from running, the OSx86 Project
(
www.osx86project.org
)
has information showing how to get OS X installed and running on
standard PCs.
Who Controls PC Hardware?
It is clear that Microsoft has always had the majority control over PC software by virtue of its control
over the dominant PC OSs, but what about the hardware? It is easy to see that IBM controlled the PC
hardware standard up through 1987. After all, IBM invented the core PC motherboard design; the
original expansion bus slot architecture (8/16-bit ISA bus); the ROM BIOS interface, serial and
parallel port implementations; video card design through VGA and XGA standards; floppy and hard
disk interface and controller implementations; power supply designs; keyboard interfaces and
designs; the mouse interface; and even the physical shapes (form factors) of everything from the
