Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
on the 68000 processor (the Amiga, from newly purchased Amiga Corporation). In 1984,
they introduced the Commodore Plus/4 which used the 7501 microprocessor, had 64 KB
RAM, 320·200 pixel graphics with 128 colours, and also released the Commodore 16 with
16 KB of RAM, at a selling price of $100.
At Microsoft, development was continuing on both Apple and IBM PC systems. No one
at the time could predict that the IBM PC market would eventually dwarf the Apple market.
The Macintosh looked to be the system of the future, thus Microsoft stopped working on
Excel, their new PC-based spreadsheet package, and switched their resources to developing
software for the Macintosh. This included Excel for the Macintosh. From now on Microsoft
would concentrate of GUI applications, for Microsoft Windows and for the Macintosh. They
released MS-DOS 3.0/3.1 which supported larger hard disks, networks and high capacity
floppy disks. After IBM lost out on the DOS operating system, Microsoft held out an olive
branch to them by demonstrating Microsoft Windows. IBM refused to become involved,
mainly because it competed with its newly developed interface, TopView. Microsoft and
Lotus Development also nearly agreed to merge their companies, but Jim Manzi at Lotus
Development convinced Mitch Kapor to back out of it. Microsoft's Windows was superior to
TopView as it used a graphical user interface. The only other real competitor to Microsoft
was Digital Research, who had missed out on the IBM PC market. In 1984, they released the
Graphics Environment Manager (GEM) icon/desktop user interface for the IBM PC com-
puter.
In the Unix market, in 1984, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) began de-
veloping the X Window System. Their main objective was to create a good windows system
for Unix machines. Many versions evolved from this and, by 1985, it was decided that X
would be available to anyone who wanted it for a nominal cost. X, itself, is a portable user
interface and can be used to run programs remotely over a network. It has since become a de
facto standard because of its manufacturer independence, its portability, its versatility and its
ability to operate transparently across most network technologies and operating systems. The
main features of X-Windows are that:
•
It is network transparent. The output from a program can either be sent to the local graph-
ics screen or to a remote node on the network. Application programs can output simulta-
neously to displays on the network. The communication mechanism used is machine-
independent and operating system independent.
•
Many different styles of user interface can be supported. The management of the user
interface, such as the placing, sizing and stacking of windows is not embedded in the sys-
tem, but is controlled by an application program which can easily be changed.
•
As X is not embedded into an operating system, it can be easily transported to a wide
range of computer systems.
•
Calls are made from application programs to the X-windows libraries which control
WIMPs. The application program thus does not have to create any of these functions.
1985 was the year that Microsoft released their first version of Windows, at a price of $100.
It was hardly startling, and would take another two versions before it completely dominated
the market. It could not multitask, and still used DOS. Another major failing was that it did
not use the full capabilities of the new 32-bit processor (80386) or the enhanced 16-bit proc-
essor (80286), and could thus only access up to 1 MB of memory.
Just as IBM were releasing their AT computer with the 80286, Intel released their new
32-bit 16 MHz 80386DX microprocessor, and the 80287 math coprocessor. The 80386 used
