Happy Birthday to the IBM PC (and what about Apple?)

Well, Frank has yet another anniversary to celebrate today. It's been 30 years since the IBM PC was released, and THAT was a step in the right direction. Of course, he's quick to point out that Apple beat IBM by four years when they released the Apple ][ in 1977. (I think Frank still has an old Apple ][ in the back of his closet, though he'd never admit it in public. In fact if he does have one, I know he'd never sell it.)

Back in those days, IBM kept most of the technical details close to the chest, if not outright proprietary, and Apple's reference manual not only had a schematic that folded out, but it also had the source code of the Monitor ROM (what is now known as the BIOS). Times have certainly changed since then, what with Apple keeping all the secrets and IBM being so open that just about anyone can build an ISA compatible board to expand the capabilities of a PC.

Well, enough reminiscing, we've got work to do. Next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.