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IBM's Purple Book and Open Source
Bill Kendrick writes: "I noticed a ZDNet article titled "Why we should hail IBM's ode to open source--the Purple Book". It compares IBM's open release of the classic PC's hardware and BIOS specifications with today's OpenSource model and Linux." Shortly after IBM's open-spec PC, they reverted to the closed PS/2 with a patented bus in an attempt to monopolize the exploding market. Hopefully this particular bit of history won't replay itself.
I've got a "purple" book, out in the garage with my box full of Lotus and Borland products. Unlike what the article's author says (twice even), it's not "plastic-covered" unless you count the shrink-wrap it came it. It's cloth-covered, just like all the old IBM manuals.
I think what people are missing is how many companies sprang up that built things for the IBM PC. Sure there were companies that built clones, some violating IBM's license by using the purple book information. But more importantly, there were a thousand times more companies that used that information to built hardware and software. All the technical specs were laid out for your right there. If you wanted to make a BIOS call or even bypass BIOS and talk right to the hardware, the purple book had the ASM source.
The only reason that IBM supports Linux is so they make more money. Its obvious that IBM wants Linux to eat away at small servers running Windows 2000. Some of those customers will eventually need a bigger, more scalable server. If they are already running Linux, they can easily migrate to AIX without much staff retraining. It also isn't difficult to port enterprise Linux software to AIX.
Enough of this "IBM is now a good company" crap.
I have a DOS Technical Reference, an IBM PC Hardware Technical Reference and an IBM AT Hardware technical Reference. These were the old style looseleaf format binder in a slipcover. I read the commented assembler listing of the BIOS. I learned quite a bit of assembler language from that reference.
I should probably sell them on eBay.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Some links for further information...
.Net?
" talks of Microsoft's method of using licensing to undermine both Samba and Open Source
competition to ".net".
ZDNet's article "Will open source get snagged in
PBS/Cringley's "Triumph of the Nerds" (search for "compaq" in the transcript) talks of the hardware revolution started by Compaq's reverse engineering IBM's PC bios. The "Purple Book" may have taught folks how to build on top of IBM's platform, but IBM controlled the platform through their control of the bios. They were the only ones who could make systems. Intel's proprietary control of the processor and Microsoft's proprietary control of the OS were necessary to get the box out on time. Little did IBM realize the flaw in this strategy, and that they'd cough-up their golden ring to these partners.
And, of course, mentioning Uncle Fester (Ballmer) is incomplete without his recent ape-dance (I apologize in advance for TheRegister's router problems -- try here too). Play it in slow motion and watch the look on his face; it would be less scary if it were dripping blood.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
The trolls from Redmond are getting thick around here:
.Net. The patent covers only the encryption procedures for how a user password is changed, but as part of the transfer protocol, it is a potential dependency for all developers who have to mimic the Windows file system and seek to interoperate with it. For example, successful interoperation with Samba might make the Samba project subject to Microsoft demands for patent licenses and royalties."
>Did you read the article?
It only covers password modification (not verification), but that's very important. Try implementing a file server where the users can't change their password without an NT SMB server anyway, and you've lost the cost benefit of a Linux/Samba Windows file server.
From the article:
" One patent is believed to underlie Windows' file transfer protocol, which will probably be used in
So, what did I miss?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
"Shortly?" The PS/2 was launched in 1987, I believe -- six years after the IBM PC. That's about a bazillion computer-industry years.
(shifts nervously from foot to foot, looks elsewhere)
So... how 'bout them Mariners, huh?
(takes fifth sip of drink in 30 seconds, looks around nervously, attempts to make friendlty eye contact with someone -- anyone -- else at party that might rescue me; everyone else secretly reveling in my discomfort, relieved that it's not them...)
Oh, shit, sorry, y'know what? Ha! heh.. I think I left my car running outside. Yeah, better go check. It's one of those new foreign jobs, hard to tell! Ha! heh, yeah, anyway...
(bolts for door)
I found lots of purple books, but none are the IBM-PC spec. So where is the link to the pdf? Come on karma whores, let's have'em.
I've got one (purple binder) someplace. Send me a case of beer and I'll see what I can do.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
How about making fun of people who believe in something foolish. I hold the same contempt for mystics of ALL flavors, christian, muslim, jewish, whatever.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
I should rephrase that to, "BG didn't do much in regards to the initial programming of MS-DOS." Most of it was ripped off.
It's (the OS is) basic infrastructure, and basic infrastructure must be shared technology.
This is really the answer to the question, "Why does Micro$oft dominate the Desktop Application Market?"
This will soon be the case for the Server Application market as well, at least on MS based OSes. Because only Micro$oft has the compete guide to building applications for Micro$oft OSes.
On a competely unrelated note: What is the relationship of the "purple book" and the creation of the "purple dinosour"? Any guesses?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Something odd that I ran across because we lease all our gear from IBM is that the IBM ServeRAID controllers don't work w/ any version of BSD and that IBM has refused to release any info about the card. I guess it acts in conjunction w/ a PowerPC chip that IBM has seen fit to integrate into their x86 server boards. This kind of effectively precludes me from running the BSD of my choice on any of IBM's serious hardware. For now, I can use MS or Linux, which IBM has released a driver for. Apparently work is being done to get a BSD driver by reverse engineering the Linux one.
... I believe this is a very different organization that's learned a lot in the last 15 years.
Not only that, but whether we like it or not from an ethical standpoint, the ultimate sign of success for any business is a near monopoly position.
We can hate and bash M$ et al, but the fact is that they are where they are today due to consistent focus on their goal -- out sell or buy their competitors.
-- If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. -- Harry F. Banks
These guys have taken the ball and run with it, as far as Linux is concerned, but let's not deify the group that brought us Microchannel architecture in a move to regain absolute control of the market. Working with IBM in Linux development is good and important, but don't lose sight of their history as a megacorp bound on dominating everything in sight. The only reason they aren't still doing it, is a bigger, meaner and more evil company came along.
I gotta get a tight tension on...
So please tell me you've figured out IBMs Linux story and aren't just mindlessly eating IBM cock for breakfast.
In case you're still under a rock, IBM loves linux for the following reasons:
1) Linux is free to IBM. IBM can tell you that they'll give you Linux for free. Linux is "free" to you. Linux costs nothing. You're getting something for nothing! Yee Haw!
2) By and large, _Nobody_ has a clue as to how to make linux solve any real-world business problem. Those that do, do not need IBMs help.
3) IBM has a "little known" organization called "Global Services" which makes up a _massive_ part of their revenue. IBM Global Services would be more than happy to contract a team of its Linux Experts to custom architect a Linux Solution for your E-Business!
So, in summary: IBM gets linux, and all of your work for free. Then they sell it to anyone that will buy it for _massive_ (utterly _massive_) profits, via service contracts and custom work. Because lets be honest, when a company of PHBs (every company) wants an email/calendaring package, they need a little more handholding and infrastructure than stock sendmail and iCal. IBM GS to the rescue!
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Has everyone forgotten the original givers? They are the reason we have the mouse. The interaction. The PC. Their research and ideas, abused by Case and later Gates, gave birth to CHI (Computer Human Interaction).
This article fails to mention anything worthy of being noted. It's too bad PARC isn't as big as it used to be.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
that IBM was in hot water for locking their customers in with proprietary hardware and software. I was as astounded as anyone when I first got the news of IBM going Open Source, but the cynic in me warns of a company that may yet return to the "embrace and extend" way of gaining power in a market.
:)
Since IBM's openess has been a relatively new thing, I simply appreciate the fact that they seem to the trying to embrace a new view of software and not get too assured that they won't return to old practices.
Of course, for those who know what I'm talking about, the Sash WDK is kinda cool.
My sigs always suck.
That's how I thought it went... He bought/ripped/whatever Quick and Dirty Operating System and turned it into MS-DOS. I don't think he did much programming.
Which came first: ed.com or command.com?
I thought that at one point you could get a large book, from IBM, with the complete, commented, assembly source for the PC BIOS. I understood that is was intended as a resource for programmers, not reverse-engineers, but that it formed the basis for some of the early (CompaQ?) clones...
Sure, anybody could've used IBMs BIOS code to create a clone chip, but they would've been swarmed by IBM lawyers suing for copyright infringement. The point of reverse engineering is to create something that uses the same (or isomorphic) algorithms while also being able to prove that you did it without any knowledge of IBMs code. Since the copyright on the BIOS code only covered IBM's specific code, the IBM clone industry was born.
Any day now you can expect Steve Mills from IBM to just come out and say that AIX5L is the end of the road and that after that they'll bolt their kernel (largely MACH) onto Linux
Funny you should mention that because earlier this week, IBM said it would "happily" ditch AIX for Linux once Linux "matures". Of course, this is also a dig on Linux's stability. Source: "When Linux grows up, IBM glad to boot AIX"
cpeterso
Hey, They _were_ an evil company. But they found religion. Maybe people (and corporations) can change... Besides, they threw a great party at NYC Linuxworld...
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
The author needs a history lesson.
Oh? So your history is all correct, then?
Until Compaq (and soon after, others) reverse engineered the bios.
It was Pheonix who first cloned the IBM Bios. Pheonix and IBM went to court over it. Guess who won.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
>IBM took an open standard (the ISA bus) and tried to take it closed
But, they'd already lost market share to the clone makers when they tried changing the bus standard. Everybody could see this was a ploy to get customers under a proprietary hardware lock again, and nobody was stupid enough to bite.
On the other hand...
The software market is still under Microsoft's domination. They can create a patent that's merely different, not necessarily novel, use it in their protocols and formats, and force it on their customers who have no choice but to use MS software, then require competitors seeking compatiblity to be licensed; thus killing the Open Source threat.
Quite a different circumstance, given todays IP laws.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
If I had to choose between a Microsoft Monopoly or and IBM Monopoly, I'd choose the IBM monopoly. They've learned their lesson, whereas MS still hasn't.
JoeLinux
May the Hair on your toes not fall out
I work at IBM e-business, and while there's a huge push for us to incorporate Linux into our e-business solutions, I don't see an IBM distro coming out any time soon. On the surface, my first impression is that this is due to financial reasons.
Some may suggest redeploying the OS/2 developers to a Linux group. I'm not in a position to know, but I tend to think that the company feels that Linux is doing fine by itself, is happy with the relatively few (open source) contributions they are making, and are more than happy to sell consulting services and their own closed source applications for the platform.
I don't think there are so many problems with Linux that someone needs to start over with it. I think the company will be happy to continue porting Linux to all its hardware platforms as well as porting all its server software to Linux.
I hope that Lotus surprises the Linux world by releasing Smartsuite for Linux, and soon!
Intelligent Life on Earth
What blasphemy!
How dare thou compare IBM to God? Does thou not realize that God is infallible. If IBM was GOD, would it ever have fallen? May a thousand infectious trolls decend upon thy caracess. Reed, for thy God is mercyful.
Servant.
Originally IBM made equipment to deal with punched cards. However setting up a tab machine was very time consuming. Early IBM business computers were basically automated plug boards, they still used cards as i/o, but the program was quickly and easily changed. It wasn't until the 70s that mass storage started to replace punch cards. Because of this, mainframes use EBCDIC which is an enhanced version of the original punch card code, almost totally backwards compatable.
Punch cards never used ASCII, first they were in use since about 1880, long before ASCII was thought up, secondly, ASCII isn't suitable for a punch card code - if you tried to punch a card full of '7' characters, you'd end up with 400 holes on one card, which wouldn't have any structural strength. Punch cards had numbers encoded as a single hole, and everything else as one or two holes, giving a maximum of 160 holes possible on a single card. This gave a maximum of 64 different codes, so when the computer read in the card it could be very easily translated into a six bit code, a Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code or BCDIC. Extending this to 8 bits gave EBCDIC. Here is a good description of card formats and EBCDIC.
"Shortly after IBM's open-spec PC, they reverted to the closed PS/2 with a patented bus in an attempt to monopolize the exploding market."
Right. So that did not work. Demonstrating what ? That it is impossible to maintain a monopoly in a free market. All this stuff about large corporations using there vast financial resources to stretch their monopoly reach is BS. In a free market, no amount of economic might can save the monopolist, becasue the guy down the street working from his garage is free to invent and undercut. And if it's not the guy down the street, its the investors, who trump any corporate nest-egg with billions in startup funds.
If Microsoft does have a monopoly, that is becasue Microsoft is a government-protected monopoly. Microsoft holds copyrights and patents. Copyrights and patents are licenses granted by the government to hold monopolies.
IBM failed with the PS2 because it could not use the force of goverment and law to prevent competitiors from building executable-compatible boxes.
MS succeeds because it has software patents. To take MS down, revoke its status as a government-protected monopoly by nullifying its software patents.
In reading through Bill Gates' book The Road Ahead he mentioned the oft cited problem of IT in the old days: men in white lab coats being intimidating and that folks really wanted computing power for the people. In his recount of the deal of the century (the selling of MS's brad of DOS to IBM for their about to be released PC) he mentioned that he had to convince Big Blue to open the specs for the PC. Hence the reverse engineering done by TI/Compaq was made easier by none other than Bill himself since he was so into openness at the time. At least that was his recollection of how things transpired.
Well I agree the trolls are thick, but they aren't coming from Redmond.
/. do it with something that isn't so verifiable. Maybe if you didn't provide the link, that would help.
You made a specific claim that Microsoft is going to require a license for this verification scheme.
The article simply talks about generalities. That there is a patent, that Microsoft could do this, etc. All of these are what-if, basically typical sensationalist journalism, or what you might call FUD.
I just find it's interesting how you take a statement of what might or could happen, and extend it into a claim that it is happening now. That's truly FUD.
Next time you troll
You're absolutely right. IBM made a mistake, and now they're back to being the fuzzy little happy company they used to be back when they were founded by a kind old man with a heart of gold and his loyal wife out in America's heartland.
We're lucky that IBM has returned to its pure intentions by spreading Linus' Good News to the world, and doing so completely selflessly. As the prophet Stallman says,
In conclusion, I think we can all rest easy in the knowledge that we all have a multinational ally in our blessed Jihad against the anti-christ and his unbelievers at Microsoft. They are an evil, self-interested demon-corporation.
IBMah Akbar!
> Oh? So your history is all correct, then?
Yes, it is!
Just follow the link I provided. There's plenty of interviews with folks that were there. Compaq did reverse engineer the bios before Phoenix.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Hopefully, this little bit of history will replay itself.
.NET framework. They're putting the squeeze on, in an attempt to lock it all up once and for all. Hopefully the market will respond to .NET in the same way it responded to MCA: evil empire loyalists may adopt it, but everyone else will go running to some other, non-empire-controlled, open standard(s). J2EE, Linux, it's all there and it all works.
IBM took an open standard (the ISA bus) and tried to take it closed (the MCA bus) so they'd put an impenetrable lock on the market. The industry responded by saying "to hell with you, IBM; we're all going to EISA (and later, PCI)." Who's playing the close-it-up game now? Microsoft, of course. The Internet currnently runs on open standards, but Microsoft's 'MCA bus' is the
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
To clarify my original post, I was not trying to imply that IBM has altruistic goals. I was merely stating that their original motivation for openness (a severe time constraint) is not applicable to the present situation, so they must have a different motivation now. I actually agree with you and seriously doubt that they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts - I would say that they serendipitously discovered that openness can actually be very good for business and that it also breeds good will.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
If I remember my history correctly, the original IBM PC was open-spec only because they didn't have enough time to come up with something proprietary. They wanted to monopolize the market from the start, but they were running behind and had to get something out so as not to lose the market entirely. So, I don't think we have to worry too much about this piece of history repeating itself because their push for openness isn't motivated by time pressures this time (at least I don't think it is).
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Yet nother crippling bombshell hit the eleaguered *BSD community when last month IDC confirmed that *SD accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick nd its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For ll practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
*BS is dying
IIRC, it was Compaq, not Phoenix.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
There is no PDF. The "Purple Book" was the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual (and later, the IBM PC AT Technical Reference Manual). These books had purple canvas covers, and were 7x9(?) looseleaf three ring binders, with a sleeve box.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
To everyone saying IBM has learned their lesson, do you really think so? Do you think if IBM could go back and make it like before where almost everyone was an IBM shop with IBM proprietary stuff they wouldn't? Of course they would. IBM wants to make money. No lessons were learned. If they find out they won't make money on Linux and Open Source they'll drop it.
"Now, Microsoft is going to require a license for the encryption algorithm for their password verification and modification. "
Really?
Did you read the article? You provided a link, but did you actually read the article?
when was 3.x an OS ?
THE PURPLE BOOK "contained the hardware schematics for the IBM PC as well as the code listings for the ROM BIOS," Dave Bradley, one of the machine's 12 original designers, later explained to me. "It contained just about everything you'd want to know if you were going to build a device that would plug into the IBM PC."
In the Purple Book, as Bradley said during the panel, "We told all the PC secrets."
IBM wasn't the first personal computer maker to spill its guts. Apple published the source code for its Apple II. Atari and Commodore also offered similarly extensive documentations. But for Big Blue, a company that built a dynasty on proprietary products, the Purple Book represented a break with tradition as almost as radical as Martin Luther's breach with the Holy Mother Church.
WHY DID IBM SO WILLINGLY bare the soul of its new machine? Bradley again: IBM wanted to "make it as simple as possible to design hardware and software that would work with the PC."
"We wanted the software and hardware industry to participate."
Participate they did. What's more, the Purple Book made the IBM PC easy to copy, and thus, in came the clones. The result: A de facto standard was born, and that standard made way for the widespread deployment and use of PCs. The rest, as they say, is history.
The historical significance is the parallel that exists between the Purple Book of yesterday and the open-source movement of today. The comparison isn't a perfect one. The Purple Book did not constitute a license for use; IBM retained intellectual property rights.
Whatever! The retaining of intellectual property rights is ther whole point. What they did is what everyone else who had attempted to put out a PC would have to do in that era. The subset of technicians working on these technologies was quite small- small enough that a collegial flow of information was necessary even to drum upo interest in one's hardware.
So what IBM was doing was trying to raise itself to a playing field which Apple and Commodore had already delineated; to break into a technological community which was already occupied with other hardwares, it had to disseminate technical information.
There is a parallel today; Geron, the company which licensed the technology to extract stem cells from blastocyst-stage embryos, dissseminated the technology, advice and support to institutions of learning, retains commercial rights to any salable products that come out of these laboratories - or even the precursors of those products.
Then and now, such a technique is to take advantage of an academic desire for learning, or a desire to help the sick, and commercialize its output.
There is really no choice for software developers in the Microsoft world, or for stem cell scientists outside the apron of federal approval, except to sell their first-born breakthroughs to loan sharks.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; capitalist systems cannot sustain innovative energy or scientific responsibility.
Goat sex free since 2001
IBM also imitated Apple in keeping the ROM BIOS source code closed, and making it legally difficult for anybody to reverse-engineer it.
I thought that at one point you could get a large book, from IBM, with the complete, commented, assembly source for the PC BIOS. I understood that is was intended as a resource for programmers, not reverse-engineers, but that it formed the basis for some of the early (CompaQ?) clones...
I could be making this all up, but I don't think so...
Living better through chemicals
You are correct. It is sitting on my bookshelf at work. It has the assembly listings for the ROM BIOS and the schematics for the motherboard and I/O cards. The only thing missing are the listings for Microsoft's ROM BASIC.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
With so many Linux companies teetering on bankruptcy, IBM could win some great PR by buying or supporting RedHat, Mandrake, or some other company if they ever do end up going for Chapter 11.
Q-Dos was written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, and he has admitted that it includes a lot of 'borrowing' from CP/M, which was written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research.
Supposedly as late as DOS 7.0 there was still code the the kernel that was an exact (and illegal) copy o parts of the CP/M bios.
The funny thing about DOS is that when Bill Gates made the deal with IBM to provide an operating system for the PC, he didn't really have one. He knew SCP had written an operating system, but he didn't own it yet. Instead, he ripped them both off. Says a lot for the company's later history.
SPQA
One good thing about IBM adopting Linux is that they can't decide to turn around and close it later. And even if they did fork some open source project, the original would still be viable to continue on. Just look at ssh and OpenSSH applications.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Most people, even heavy computer users, have never seen an EISA based computer. I've never seen an EISA peripheral card. I have seen EISA computers, but then I run some of my software on certain models of Dell servers. It certainly wasn't a major selling point for most Dell customers which is no doubt why more recent models in the same line have dropped EISA and use PCI. The MCA was released around 1986 or 1987, and the EISA came out about then. The ISA dominated from before then until VLB and PCI came out and a few years after, in fact. PCI didn't start being popular until 1995 or so, after a brief fight with VLB, and has become dominant only in the last three years or so.
What really happened is that the PC buyers looked at machines based on MCA, EISA, and ISA, and decided that the benefits of the more powerful busses weren't worth the additional cost and stuck with ISA. I don't know if the perceived benefits were higher with VLB and PCI or if the costs were lower, but the situation was obviously different when they came on the scene. (I suspect that the costs were lower because Intel gave away the rights to use the PCI with the expectation that they would be in the best position to produce motherboards for PCI-based computers and so would make their money from hardware sales, but that's not based on any hard knowledge, just on my observation of what actually happened.)
He's ruthlessly bouncy, too - kind of like a ruthless, evil, bald Tigger :)
Unfortunately, his comical appearance in that video makes it very difficult for me to take him as seriously as I should...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I heard that Linux was for fags , is that true? And does that mean that IBM is turning into something for fags too?
Join in, everyone:
h tml)
EVER ONWARD
Verse:
There's a thrill in store for all
for we're about to toast
The corporation that we represent.
We're here to cheer each pioneer
and also proudly boast,
Of that man of men
our sterling president
The name of T.J. Watson means
a courage none can stem
And we feel honored to be
here to toast the IBM.
Chorus:
Ever Onward! Ever Onward!
That's the spirit that has brought
us fame.
We're big but bigger we will be,
We can't fail for all can see,
that to serve humanity
Has been our aim.
Our products now are known
in every zone.
Our reputation sparkles
like a gem.
We've fought our way through
And new fields we're sure to conquer, too,
For the Ever Onward IBM!
Ever Onward! Ever Onward!
We're bound for the top
to never fall,
Right here and now we thankfully
Pledge sincerest loyalty
To the corporation
that's the best of all
Our leaders we revere
and while we're here,
Let's show the world just what
we think of them!
So let us sing men - Sing men
Once or twice, then sing again
for the EVER ONWARD IBM!
(Think I'm joking? See: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/ibmsongbook.
I found lots of purple books, but none are the IBM-PC spec. So where is the link to the pdf? Come on karma whores, let's have'em.
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
Isn't that some old technology, sufficiently old enough to be open sourced?
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Free software is great. But after two or three years, I still don't know what "open source" is supposed to be... Any definition which encompasses the SCSL, the NPL, and perhaps even Microsofts "Shared Source" must be so broad as to be practially meaningless.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Simply put. Microchannel was great. The biggest problem was the stupid reference diskettes, and that was simply because flash memory wasn't there, yet.
Microchannel machines simply worked longer and more reliably than ISA or even PCI machines.
The problems was the stupid #$%& licensing terms. Gotta separate the technical side from the idiot marketing side.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Hopefully this bit of history will replay itself.
Hopefully, MS, in trying to monopolize the Internet, will loose. Everybody will "just say no", like they did to the PS/2 and Microchannel.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
"Hopefully this particular bit of history won't replay itself."
The trouble is, it *does* and *will continue* to replay itself, at least as long as serious money stands to be made from it. We've seen some major players in the industry (cough, cough, any RAM people wanna raise their hands) try to pull slick ones in this area, and it's undoubtedly not the last we'll hear of such activity.
In today's hardware market, you have three options (1) be the leader, (2) follow the leader, and (3) sue the leader. Now, of couse we'd all prefer corporations with sway to choose either options 1 or 2, and to cooperate nicely if option 2 is chosen. This doesn't seem to work very well in practice, however. We seem to see periods of happy cooperation, marked with spikes in litigious urges being manifested in ugly ways.
It seems, though, that we're headed to a point where hardware matters less and less, and software matters much more (many would say that we've been at that point for a *long* time). Which is why supporting free software is of critical importance to me individually, as well as most people I work with (and most of
Frankly, I'm more worried about waging my wars on the battlegrounds of senseless IP lawsuits and dangerous software patent legislation (message to Europe: please don't go there).
All replies, flames, and corrections VERY welcome
I know quite a number of them folks at IBM personally (being a former IBMer and an old Linux fart), and I can tell you that as long as they are in their positions (now that is a weak point I admit) IBM is not going to monopolize Linux.
Most of IBM's early work was open source too. I remember making patches to IBM's source code on some of the 60's mainframe systems. Even some of the very early IBM systems i.e. the IBM 1130 and IBM 1620 came with full source code and a complete set of hardware schematics.
If I recall correctly, IBM didn't start locking up its source code until after Amdahl started using IBM source to build IBM mainframe clones.
and licensing their technology. IBM has more patents every year than any other company. If I am not mistaken, the PS2 architecture was ahead of it's time by having devices speak directly to the processor and memory speeding things up. I also believe IBM opened the PC spec up to put down the monopoly abuse cries from their trials. If memory serves, IBM put alot of companies in business.
Cool.. soon I'll have a rainbow of technical manuals for my shelf.. Apple II's Red and Blue books, now the Purple book. O'Reilly helps matters with their colors, but ...
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
The first thing that people said when they read the BIOS was "damn, this is slow, I'll write directly to video buffer at this address here". The first PC was barely out of the factory before somebody wrote around the BIOS and ensured his code would be stuck to the hardware forever.
In many ways it was the failure of the BIOS that made the PC architecture a standard; if the damn thing had worked the way IBM said it would, all programs would use BIOS to interface with the hardware, which would be just about anything. I think IBM even thought, for about five minutes, that they could license the BIOS to Apple or anyone else that wanted to use this ingenious hardware abstraction.
The main effect of publishing the BIOS was that everyone picked out the addresses of the video buffer, serial port, and other devices, embedded them in their programs, and made the hardware architecture a standard.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
i miss my purple book. i sold it for $550 (along with my original PC) ahh, the days when 256k was enought ram. time to take my purple pill.
Or something like that. Any day now you can expect Steve Mills from IBM to just come out and say that AIX5L is the end of the road and that after that they'll bolt their kernel (largely MACH) onto Linux and throw in all the great stuff AIX is much better than Linux at such as JFS, span PV, SMP, commercial support. Or even replace the whole kernel and open source that. Even IBM is starting to realize that developing and maintaining something as complex as AIX on their own doesn't make an awful lot of economic sense. Not when the margin on Unix server hardware is 30% and the margin on Software is nearly zero. Most of the apps that IBM and IGS has already identified as strategic run on Linux, Linux already runs on PC, (some) PPC, OS/400 LPARs, and mainframes, natively, instances under VM and VM LPARs as well. They don't develop a PC based OS anymore and the OS's for AS/400s and mainframes are inseperable from the hardware anyway. It's only in the commodity *nix space where the margins are low AND the development costs are high. So fling AIX the hell out the door and move on. They're already more than halfway there with AIX5L.
Yes, I realize IBM has said that they won't do their own distro... but I still think they should.
One of the biggest reasons for the success of the PC was not just the openess, but because the IBM brand name was something that provided a bit more confidence for "the corporate suits" to adopt... an image which Apple and Radio Shack didn't quite have then... and most distros don't quite have right now.
IBM should probably buy an existing distro like Redhat in addition to the multi-distro support they're already doing. Thanks to the GPL, all of their developments for their own distro will still be available to other distros who will in turn refine IBM's developments, and so on.
How about defending someone who supports a foolish and dangerous position? If it became widely held that IBM were "best buddies" with the Open Source and GNU communities, how much do you think that will harm it in the long run the moment it no longer "appears profitable" to support it?
Hasta la vista, baby, and thanks for all the free labor. Print that out and put it in your scrapbook.
Publishing the interface specification has nothing to do with creating an "open source" computer. The Purple Book provided enough information for third-party developers to build adapter cards compatible with the PC, but not enough information to clone the PC itself.
IBM was simply imitating the highly sucessful Apple II, which Wozniak designed as a platform that his fellow hardware hackers could easily extend. IBM also imitated Apple in keeping the ROM BIOS source code closed, and making it legally difficult for anybody to reverse-engineer it. Neither company was interested in having competition build the basic platform.
Unfortunately for IBM (and fortunate for consumers of commodity hardware), Phoenix, Compaq, and others were able to use "clean-room" techniques to reverse-engineer IBM's software without breaking existing law. Alas, the law has since been tightened.
Did ZDNet lay off it's editors?
The author needs a history lesson. I won't even bother to correct his "Bill Gates wrote DOS" misinformation.
But, the part that really needs clarifying is: the "Purple Book" ignited the PC revolution. While it is true that Microsoft owes it's monopoly to an open hardware platform, the "Purple Book" was not the key.
IBM owned the motherboard and system by holding the IP to the bios. People could build on top of the PC platform with the "Purple Book", but only IBM could build the systems -- Until Compaq (and soon after, others) reverse engineered the bios.
Then anyone could build motherboards and systems, and the PC revolution was ignited; hardware became more functional and faster at a furious pace.
If IBM still controlled the platform, then 8088's would still be hot technology.
And here is where the real lesson for Open Source starts.
If today's IP laws favoring those with popular software were in place in the 80's, then Compaq would never have been legally able to reverse engineer the IBM PC bios, and IBM would still be in control of their platform.
Open source indeed has the potential to put all software application's competition on a level playing field (where no one vendor can leverage the operating system to favor their applications and break other's applications).
But, in order to get people to switch from Microsoft to Open Source, we need some degree of compatibility. Customers are slow to change old habits. They fear training. They fear that old data won't make the transition exactly correctly. They trust that Microsoft won't shoot itself in the foot as often as they kill their competition... usually Microsoft applications work with their OS, as long as you keep upgrading on their schedule. If you want to gauge how quickly the US market will switch to an Open Source OS, just look athow quickly the US has embraced the metric system: it may be a world standard,it may be superior, it may be compatible, but the thought of change scares people.
Compatibility with Microsoft requires reverse engineering of their API's, file formats, and protocols.
Competitors are used to chasing Microsoft's tail: every release and patch has changes that make compatible software obsolete, and competitors have to scurry to be compatible again. But, this game just took a turn forthe worse: with today's IP laws, Microsoft can patent a portion of their protocols, API's, or file formats, and make compatible competition illegal. They don't need to patent something novel, just different: Microsoft customers are forced to follow like lemmings.
From the recent ".net" news, it looks like that's exactly what Microsoft intends to do with Samba. Samba is usually a foot-in-the-door for the Linux OS in corporate america. It's easy to show management the savings on a Linux based file server running Samba.
Now, Microsoft is going to require a license for the encryption algorithm for their password verification and modification.
That will kill Samba.
No Open Source project can afford a license. Usually when pressed fora license, the Open Source project ends compatibility immediately. For Unisys's LZH patent on GIFs, we just switched to other image compression algorithms. We've still yet to see how far Dolby will go to stop distribution of Open Source AC3 decoders. The mere letter from the lawyer is usually enough to stop anOpen Source project.
Worse: even if Microsoft were to grant a license, it would probably require that the licensed algorithm's source not be distributed.
Even worse: this license covers encryption. Most data is copyrighted by default, even if you don't include the circle-"C", therefor: it falls under the DMCA's prohibition on unlicensed decryption; it will be a criminal offense to even discuss compatible software.
What if Microsoft were to preemptively change the html or ftp protocols likewise? Microsoft customers are forced to follow; the standard rules of competition won't apply. Microsoft can end up owning every port and protocol on the net as their proprietary IP.
Microsoft will use our maligned IP laws to kill any Open Source project that attempts to be compatible. The Antitrust laws have failed; Microsoftis on a shooting spree. Samba will be first. Wine and compatible word processors and office suites will be next. But, they won't stop until every client and server is a Windows machine running MS applications.
If you don't think Ballmer is that ruthlessly competitive, then you haven't been watching him.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
IBM vigorously pursued any clone maker that didn't very carefully reverse-engineer their BIOS using clean room techniques. At least until very late in the game, you couldn't buy a BIOS license from IBM; if they called you on the carpet, the only course open was to revise your BIOS until IBM was happy with it.
In addition to threats of litigation against US clone makers, they also enlisted the US Customs service to impound shipments of PCs entering the US that IBM claimed had infringing BIOSes. In fact, IBM gave software to Customs to allow them to test for infringement -- if the IBM software said the BIOS was "too similar", the PCs were assumed guilty until the importer could prove their innocence. Several offshore clone companies died this way.
Phoenix and other BIOS companies that developed clean room BIOSes were the direct result of this, as was a very profitable business by National Software Testing Labs and others to do BIOS infringement evaluations. Lots and lots of money was spent to come up BIOS code that was both compatible and non-infringing. Writing assembly language interrupt routines that acted precisely like IBM's, but looked sufficiently different to avoid infringement claims was about the least pleasant programming task imaginable.
The Purple Book may have made clones possible, but IBM's copyright enforcement added lots of unnecessary cost to the clone market, without even adding much to IBM's bottom line (the money went to the reverse engineering industry, not to IBM).
Travel around the world and people will tell you all USAmericans are racists. I always thought that was harsh. I've met quite a few 'mericans that were quick to tell a joke denigrading people of other races or beliefs but never put faith in the notion that it was that wide-spread. Now I'm reconsidering my position.
Can you tell me, jxqvg, was your posting supposed to be rascist (attacking those with olive skin), bigoted against religion (making folly of those who have religious beliefs), or just synical (is essence supporting the statement "there isn't any hope, so your just a fool if you 'try'")? Or maybe your just a corporatist sicaphant lashing out anything that doesn't promote the goals of the 1% of shareholders in the world that own 99% of the stuff?
Come on! Making fun of someone just because they believe in something is lame. Shame on those who mod'ed you up.
Or maybe your just a Microsoft PR guy who wants to make free software supporters look like goofs? Microsoft does bad things and has hurt people. Those people have valid criticism of them. Microsoft's critics are not crazy to complain... they are just upset at being mistreated, in some cases illegally mistreated.
I personally owe a big Thank-You to IBM for publishing the BIOS standard and the assoicated "Blue Book" (PC Hardware Technical Reference). Those two books enabled me to understand PC hardware and the underlying reasons (the BIOS) why stuff actually did what it did. The knowedge gained by reading those texts enabled me to have a successful career reparing PC's down to COMPONENT level (ancient by today's standards - but then a Floppy drive cost $450.00, you HAD to repair them, not just throw em away). Of course, in later years and lives, I graduated on to software and programming, but the Assembly language knowledge in the Purple book still is a foundation for most of the systems and low-level programming that I do today. Now that IBM is embracing Linux and its community, more the better!! Thanks, IBM!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Still, they've done a lot for open source. So who cares what their motives are and how slow they came to it, the fact that they're spending big money is what's important.
It was DR-DOS, but you didn't hear it here.
Compared to the unix systems that existed at the time (which MSDOS was VERY roughly based on), it sucked.
Don't kid yourself, you know BG is sharp.
He might be evil, but he is smart.
Umm.. so what's the problem? They use Linux to provide solutions to companies and get paid for it. They also create a lot of nifty tools and improvements that they release for free. Wasn't this pretty much the whole idea? People and companies use Linux and improve upon it and give those improvements back to the community?
Boy, I'm glad I'm not the only person who had a MCA PS/2 laying around. Still have it, running Slackware 7.1
And in the server market, those RS6000's with the old MCA bus (try an F40) will to this day blow out some very nice Pentium machines.
>> Buy yourself some extremely long bed sheets. You'll be making an escape rope out of them very soon.
its all in the title
Actually, MCA wasn't all that horrific as far as the concept went. Don't forget that the PC was IBM's first "open" system, and that was only for expediency to get it to market in a year. IBM was still very much a big iron company, and thought that way. You could always be sure that IBM components would play well together, and MCA continued this concept into the PC world.
However, the fact that patenting MCA didn't improve IBM's share of the PC market should be a lesson in the advantages of truly open technologies over proprietary ones.
(And yes, my first Linux install was Slackware on a MCA PS/2)
Simply put. Microchannel was great. The biggest problem was the stupid reference diskettes, and that was simply because flash memory wasn't there, yet.
No, the biggest problem was the lack of backward compatability with ISA cards. MCA forced a chicken-and-egg scenario: people wouldn't buy the machine because there weren't as many expansion cards for it, and third party providers weren't going to tool up to produce cards for a machine that wasn't selling well. Lose lose.
Microchannel machines simply worked longer and more reliably than ISA or even PCI machines.
The ones that weren't DOA, maybe. My experience is that one out of every five P(o)S2 machines that I pulled out of a box was fscked in some way. High on the hit parade were dead serial and parallel ports. Well, on the bright side, they did introduce VGA and 3 1/2" disk drives.
I'm pretty sure there are more people who are nostalgic for the S-100 bus than for MCA.
Cringely is a rumor mongeror, and Petreley is the FUDmeister of all time. Neither is a particularly noteworthy source of inspiration.
Do I think you shouldn't consider it? No.
Do I think you should go around trolling and claiming it has already happened? No
It's the latter you guilty of, and why it's called FUD and not introspection.
IBM was just following in the footsteps of the Apple ][ computers which provided complete schematics for the computer in the manuals. The Apple ][ pioneered multiple expansion cards and an easily openable case, and here IBM realising what a good idea it was also folowed suit. Too bad Apple sometimes forgot those concepts.
--
blinko - "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down"
Like Steve Jobs *stole* the GUI from XEROX as well? XEROX allowed him to parts of the GUI and sell it himself. *shrugs* Gates probably did so *some* programming in Messy DOS. And as for a CLI OS, it was great. Not the best. But good enough for the average back in the late 80s early 90s. Win3.x was another good OS from M$, after that, they went downhill in quality.
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
Most people, even heavy computer users, have never seen an EISA based computer. I've never seen an EISA peripheral card.
I loved my Austin WinTower 433E (and its Adaptec 1742 EISA SCSI adapter).
That thing was built like a tank (still running 9 years later, only down for upgrades like disk, and for plant shutdown).
We decomissioned it this year... I should have purchased the puppy on surplus after we declassified the disks... Oh well...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
What is with all the stupid bolding and larger print? Made it kind of hard to read... which is saying a lot for simple black text on a white background.
What is the relationship of the "purple book" and the creation of the "purple dinosour"? Any guesses?
Mine would be "absolutely none". They're nowhere near even the same hue of purple.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
I grow tired of hearing that Linux is better than some other OS. I happen to think it is damn good, but I would still recommend Windows for my mom. In that regard, Windows is better.
Click here or here.
Just like it says here...
So, you don't have a problem with my saying that Compaq started the open
hardware PC revolution by reverse engineering the bios.
Nor do you have a problem with my saying that the current IP laws would
make that illegal today.
Nor do you have a problem with my saying that this is an important difference
between the open hardware historical perspective and the impending
Open Source revolution that the Open Source movement must be aware of.
Nor do you have a problem with my argument that compatibility is crucial
to winning the hearts and minds of Windows users.
Nor do you have a problem with my saying that current IP laws can be
used to stop Open Source *nix/Windows compatibility projects.
You don't even have a problem with my saying that Ballmer is ruthlessly
competitive.
Your only reason for calling my entire writing FUD and me a troll rests
on the statement (I'm guessing it may be the only one you read):
"Now, Microsoft is going to require a license for the encryption
algorithm for their password verification and modification. "
Which was predicated with statements (that you missed) like: "with
today's IP laws, Microsoft can patent a portion of their protocols, API's,
or file formats, and make compatible competition illegal..." and "From
the recent ".net" news, it looks like that's exactly what Microsoft intends
to do..."
That's not tentative enough? Was it really worth degrading the
whole writing? Was it worth bitching and ranting about?
You call my writing bad, and cut down two prominent IT authors to help
prove your case.
You're either one of the trolls sent in from Redmond (Why do I always
get them?), or you're suffering from "writer-envy"!
If you were an advocate of Open Source, your criticism would be, at
worst: "it's a good argument but nobody can prove Microsoft is pursuing
this course (outside of Redmond)" rather than labeling the entire writing
"FUD".
Better yet: you should be trying to figure out ways to fight what may
become a serious problem for Open Source. If Ballmer were to do this
to Samba, most every IT manager would say "switch the Linux file server
to XP now!"? Are the Open Source projects you work on ready for a
response? The NetBSD folks got rid of their AC3 link the moment they
got a letter from Dolby's lawyers -- even though Dolby might not have a
legal leg to stand on.
This tactic can be used to stop Open Source compatibility; that's a
serious threat that should have us (if you are an "us" and not a Redmond
"them") circling the wagons. Wouldn't it be better to start preparing
a response now rather than bickering about the non-tentative nature of
a statement taken out of context? Should we just wait and provide our
standard knee-jerk reaction when it happens? Should we just bend-over
now and say: "Ballmer is right -- we are un-American, we can't handle licensing
at all -- we're just a bunch of hackers that deserved to die"? Do
you really have a point or are you just mad because you lack any talent
for writing?
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
What the clone-makers did was use the clean room technique. You have two teams of developers, who work completely separately. Team A's job is to analyze the program you need to clone. (I was under the impression the the firmware team A people reverse-engineered the IBM BIOS, but perhaps I misremember). They document what the product does, but are very careful to avoid describing how.
Team B knows as little about the source product as possible. Even if source code is available, they are not allowed to read it. The work only from Team A's documentation, and implement the functionality described therein. Team A tests the behavior of the two products, and documents any inconsistencies. This goes back and forth until the two behaviors match.
Of course, this only works with copyrighted code. Simply reading code and telling somebody what it does is not copyright violation. (Disassembling object code in order to read its source might be a license violation, but that's controversial.) But it won't work with patented code, 'cause a patented technique can't be reproduced, even if discovered independently.
I've often thought that it would make a lot of sense to force Microsoft to use the Clean Room technique to resolve issues about undocumented Windows behavior. It makes a lot more sense than breaking them up -- whichever company ended up with Windows would still have a monopoly. If Microsoft were forced to provide (at a reasonable cost) a clean room Team A for anybody who wanted to play at being Team B, there would be no issues of whether they were deliberately fiddling the product in order to make live hard for competitors.
Yep, pretty much. That's the line that caught my attention in your work of Science Fiction.
There's a long list of products that were technically better than their competition, but weren't marketed/licensed worth a damn. OS/2 vs Windows, MCA vs ISA, SanFrancisco vs Web's Fear; the list goes on and on just with IBM's products, let alone the rest of the industry. (And the list of tech that never made it out of the blue walls would probably tripple that list.)
I've browsed your work -- you do have problems communicating! And you're a died-in-the-wool WinDoh's lemming too! Take heart: these things will pass as you mature.
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
Well thank you. I wasn't at all interested in anything that you wrote, but I'm glad to see some interest in my creations.
I'm not familiar with this term WinDoh's lemming. Is that any relation to Winnie the Pooh?
Does the posting of FUD disappear with age? I think it's remarkable how you've tried to change the topic of this away from your paranoid FUD attack into a personal attack upon myself.
This is a common misperception and there's an interesting story behind it.
In 1988 I met one of the MicroChannel bus architects. At that point, the PS/2 was not selling and peripheral makers were avoiding it in droves. He told a group of us the actual story of the licensing.
The MicroChannel bus (which was based on one of the System/370 busses) was released to the public domain in order to get a lot of peripheral support. The actual implementation and chipsets were IBM proprietary and were available for a very steep license. The computer press didn't understand the difference and reported that the bus was proprietary and only availble for a very high license fee. IBM marketing (who had opposed making the bus itself public) saw the chance to make some quick money and punish the cloners. They reinforced the bad information that the industry papers were reporting and never managed to get them corrections so the story took on its own life and almost nobody ever realized the truth.
The man I spoke to was also one of the architects of the PC/AT extensions to the original PC bus (which later became ISA) and felt that MCA was a much better design. He felt that IBM marketing had hurt both the future of the PC industry by blocking a generation change and the future of IBM by keeping their bus families incompatible with each other.
One problem with the conversation is, I've addressed your concerns, yet you continue to baselessly rant. At that point, I can't address anything but your character. If you say something intelligent, I'll gladly address that (but I'm not holding my breath)!
While you may find you resemble WTP, that was not my intent. Let me interpret:
"WinDoh's" refers to products made by Microsoft used by people with the "Homer Simpson" mentality.
"Lemming's" are creatures that, without question, follow their god (Ballmer) where ever he forces them to go.
If you don't see the fit, you lack introspection.
For example, the only verbiage on your "Opinions" page:
http://www.sodablue.org/Opinion/Default.asp
is: "I have no opinion at this time."... Doh! You don't need opinions of your own, Ballmer can tell you what they are!
Maybe, if Ballmer is successful in owning every port and protocol on the net, you won't have to play NetTrek with Unix folks (who made NetTrek ~15 years ago), thereby cutting out the competition! Trying to make people think Ballmer isn't ruthlessly competitive may just get you your reward!
And, finally, as for FUD, you need to read more than one sentence before passing judgment. The sentence you chose, out of context, could be mistaken as not tentative enough... and I have addressed that concern (showing you some other sentences you missed). You have seemingly agreed with the rest of the argument (if not, lets hear why you think the work ranks as "Science Fiction"), yet seem highly agitated.
So, all I can conclude is that I wrote something that said something bad about your God Ballmer, and that made you rant; not because it's untrue, you just don't want to know about it.
Your turn....
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!