In 1981, IBM launched the PC. By making it an open standard, they changed computing forever. Six years later, they announced the release of the IBM PS/2. A attempt to take back full control of the market they had created.
The plan should have succeeded. One Company stood in their way: Compaq.
On 19th Feb I'll be giving talk looking at the rise of Compaq, and how they stood up to - and beat - IBM. https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/lectures/2025-26/20260219.htm #computing #history
And when did Compaq go out of business?
@garius
Outside the USA, Compaq was an also ran. Years before I even saw one in UK & Ireland.
PCs, OSes & applications held back by "IBM Compatibility" marketing for nearly a decade.
Loads of other successful IBM clones in Europe and to an extent in USA.
The PS/2, MCA* and OS/2 were all failures, not because of Compaq, but because it was too little, too late & too expensive.
[*Servers etc used EISA till PCI arrived. The VESA bus extension to ISA bus was a failure, though more used than MCA]
@garius
They held it back for nearly 10 years.
A worst choice of not-really-16bit CPU
DOS was a clone of 8080/805/Z80 CP/M for the 8088, not even written by MS or IBM.
Poor capacity floppy.
Text only display. CGA was tied to NTSC spec.
The BIOS was not open, it was reverse-engineered. The rest was only "open" in the sense that it was done quickly from a catalogue. DOS wasn't open.
ACT Sirus 1 / Victor 9000 was in UK & Europe earlier & superior, but later "IBM compatibility" marketing killed it.
