Introduction - Computer Busses - page 31

as most of the market was doing, they based it on the excellent 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor.
It had 1 MB RAM, 2 MB ROM, a 12-inch black/white monitor, 720 · 364 graphics, dual 5.25-
inch 860 KB floppy drives, and a 5 MB hard disk drive. LISA would sell over 100 000 units.
Apple was keen to develop the LISA computer, but it would be the new Mac, which would
become the focus for their operation.
Apple was investing a great deal of effort in the Mac, and gave the Mac developers the
best environment possible. This caused considerable friction with the Apple II division, as all
the finances for the Mac facilities were generated from sales of the Apple II. Apple inten-
tionally kept the two divisions apart, which only helped to increase the friction. In the year,
the Apple II highlighted its success by selling its 1 millionth unit. They continued its devel-
opment with the Apple IIe, which had 64 KB RAM, Applesoft BASIC, upper/lower case
keyboard, seven expansion slots, 40 · 24 and 80 · 24 text, 1 MHz 6502 processor, up to
560 · 192 graphics, and a 140 KB 5.25-inch floppy drive.
The software market, especially related to the IBM PC was growing fast. Satellite Soft-
ware International released WordPerfect 3.0 for $500, and Borland International, founded by
Philippe Kahn, created the first version of their excellent Turbo Pascal compiler. Borland,
single-handily, saved Pascal from an early exit. Borland were for years the main company
involved in producing software development tools for the PC, with Borland C++, Borland
Delphi and Borland JBuilder. Unfortunately, they would eventually struggle against the
might of Microsoft (who were able to invest a great deal of money into their development
tools, especially in Visual Basic and Visual C++). Microsoft has the privileged position of
being able to invest money in other areas of development, but redirecting them from profits
made from other areas. For example, they used profits from the DOS system to invest in
Windows, and profits from Windows to invest into office applications (Word, Excel and
PowerPoint), and profits from office applications to invest into software development tools
(Visual Basic, Visual C++ and Visual Java). Obviously, it is to Microsoft's advantage that
they keep the tools up-to-date, as this is the same development system that they use to gener-
ate their own applications.
1984 obviously had futuristic connotations to it. However, it was less of a futuristic year
for IBM and more of a nightmare, when IBM released the IBM PCjr. It used the 8088 CPU,
includes 64 KB RAM, a 'Freeboard' keyboard (IBM would eventually release a new key-
board, which was a free upgrade to those who wanted it), and one 5.25-inch disk drive, and
no monitor, for $1300. A year later, in 1985, the PCjr was dropped. As the market became
more competitive, IBM started to show their teeth as the number of cloners increased. The
unfortunate companies who were the first to be taken to court were Corona Data Systems and
Eagle Computer. IBM sued them over a copyright violation of the IBM PC's BIOS, and eas-
ily won the case. It was clear that, to avoid litigation, that companies required rewriting the
BIOS. This would not give a technical advantage, but would keep IBM's lawyers away.
The next step for IBM was important in the development of the PC. For this they learned
from their mistakes with the PCjr, and made their new computer, the PC AT, compatible
with the IBM PC. It used the new Intel 6MHz 80286 processor, and had a 5.25-inch 1.2 MB
floppy drive, with 256 KB or 512 KB RAM, optional 20 MB hard drive, monochrome or col-
our monitor. The initial cost was $4000.
As the demand for IBM PCs increased, there was also an increase for demand for graph-
ics adaptors. For this IBM released the Enhanced Color Display (EGA) monitor with
640·350 resolution, 16 colours, at a cost of $850. They also released TopView which failed
in the market because it was text-based, and not a GUI. If they had done, they may have cap-
tured the market which Microsoft Windows gained.