Re: [aclug-L] Smart Cars

[Bob Deep <bobd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Goerzen wrote:
> > The success of linux, is in some strang way related to the success of
> > Microsoft.  Without MS's serious control of the computing hardware
> > market, and the standardization of the Personal Computer hardware, the
> 
> Unfortunately, there isn't really any standardization of PC hardware.  There
> is no standard for video cards (only for their output).  PCI itself has
> several flavors.  We have IDE, EIDE, UDMA, SCSI, SCSI-UW, SCSI-U2W, etc.

Most video cards run a standard set of VGA formats and have very
standard and similar modes of operation...  Disk communication
techniques are very limited in scope (SCSI looks like SCSI-UW, IDE and
EIDE are very close varients etc..)  What I'm saying is that, because
MicroSoft controlls the Hardware (by the fact that their products don't
run on a VAX or something), we have a known published hardware standard
and a stable hardware platform that's cheep.

Just about every personal computer sold today can run the video in
certian standard modes...  Just about every one can hook up to an IDE
hard drive and start reading and writing data.   Why?  Because of the
published standards and the force MicroSoft has when it grants it's
"made for Windows" logo.  If you don't meet their standards, no logo,
less sales.  The pressure to go along with M$/Intel is very great for
hardware venders. (Of course we owe a lot of credit to IBM too, but
that's a differant story.)

> > bulk of linux's current users and developers would still be in the dark
> > ages (ie B.P.C).  Linux then benifits from a standard and stable
> 
> Unix existed long before the PC.  Frankly, I would rather have seen OS/2 win
> out if the choice is between OS/2 and Windows.  Had the Internet
> infrastructure existed to its present extent back when the 386 came out,
> Linux would have been viable back then already.

Unix existed, sure... BUT Linux did not, Open source software did not
either for that matter... And I don't beleive it *could* exist in a
world where the hardware was non-standard, and the costs to aquire it
high.  

> > hardware platform that's cheep and reliable. (Yes, it runs on various
> > platforms, but the bulk of development is being done on PC's).  It is
> 
> This I must take issue with.  While it may be true that the majority of
> people running Linux do so on x86 hardware (note I avoid "PC" since it is
> ambiguous here), it is not true that other platforms are not as
> well-supported.  Alpha, Sparc, UltraSparc, m68k, etc. are among the
> well-supported versions as well.  Thanks to free software, even if the
> software developer is using x86, all it takes is a recompile and things work
> fine on my Alpha.

I would contend that Alpha or Sparc based boxes only vary slightly in
the hardware end.  The instruction sets are very similar, though the
actual encoding is differant. When you can plug the same PCI card into
differant boxes and have it work, I'd say the hardware was *very* close
in this case.  I know you can plug PCI disk drive adapters into Sparc
boxes and they work, and I assume you can do the same thing with an
Alpha box... Even your expensive Alpha box is cheeper due to the
hardware standards maintained by M$/Intel.  But...

I did not say that other platforms are not supported, but that they are
not as well supported.  Some less than others.  How long it takes to get
a specific feature supported on each platform is directly related to the
number of developers who think it's worth their time to do the work... 
And who has the hardware...  You are more likely to find a capible
programmer with an Intel X86 box than one with a m68k box... Thus the
slower support for m68k based boxes.  You must agree that the bulk of
Open source development is being done on x86 hardware...

> > the availablity of the hardware that makes linux as successful as it is,
> > and we owe a lot of thanks to the M$oft/Intel pair for the situation we
> > find our selves in.
> 
> Well again, the benefits of mass production certainly have done a lot for
> computing and for Linux, but I see no reason that it would have had to be
> Microsoft and Intel driving that.  Digital could have, had they not missed
> the ball with PCs.  IBM could have, too, had they done a better job with
> OS/2, or done a better job with the PC architecture.  Apple could have, had
> they done a better job with their OS.
> 

IBM trashed the job from day one by choosing Intel chips.  Can you
imagine that when IBM built the first PC from an Intel 8088, Motorola
already was producing the 68k series?  IBM tossed in an 8 bit chip, when
a true 16 bit one was on the market?  The world would be a very
differant place had IBM gone with Motorola.  Gone would be the hokey
memory pages and the many variances in instruction sets we see between
the 8088, 286, 386, pentium etc.... Then IBM blew their inovoation
because they attempted to exercise absolute control over the hardware
and software and got "reverse engineered" out of the market.

Digital was too concerned with their Vax 11 Boxes which where making
them loads of cash and had a much better OS than that yonder IBM box. 
Apple stood the best chance, but got started a bit too late to be able
to catch up, then got soundly trounced when they refused to allow third
parties to use their OS and clone the hardware.  All this during a time
when M$ was able to (mostly by luck and perhaps some skill) corner the
market with their DOS enough to start controlling the hardware makers.

The popularity of Linux is driven, in large part, by the price of the
hardware... And the prices of hardware are driven, in large part, by the
mass production cost reductions possible because of the standardization
of software.  Even your Alpha benifits in being cheeper to aquire... 
Memory, adapter cards, disk drives all are cheeper, in large part,
because a *LOT* of folks run Windows.

-= bob =-
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