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HP's Slate To Be Replaced By WebOS Tablet?
itwbennett writes "Last week the rumor mill was rumbling about the demise of HP's Slate. 'This past weekend brought fresh rumors to the surface,' writes blogger Peter Smith. 'Now the insiders are saying that the Slate will be reborn as the HP Hurricane, and it will run WebOS. That makes perfect sense given HP's recent purchase of Palm and HP's declaration that they were 'doubling down on WebOS.' More surprising is the rumored launch date of Q3 of this year, which seems like a pretty fast turn-around. Particularly so if HP ditches the Atom and goes with an ARM processor, which Electronista suggests it would have to do.'"
Last week the rumor mill was also discussing WebOS tablets. This isn't a new shocking development, this was pretty much expected the moment they bought Palm.
I'm not surprised to see HP releasing something based on WebOS, but what do you all think the chances are of them taking WebOS and using it as a base to improve on, thereby creating their own version of it?
Living With a Nerd
I think it's going to be an also ran against Android and iPhone OS.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Peter Smith's slightly skewed profile picture exudes serious business to me. One look at that grimacing countenance and I'm ready to follow him to the gates of Hell...and, if necessary, liveblog about our encounters with demons! And of course, my preferred demon-liveblogging OS is WebOS!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
If they're planning on releasing a WebOS tablet, I'm sure they will continue to improve/expand WebOS (by necessity at least to support the larger tablet format). Anything they produce will of course be "their own version" since they now own WebOS. As a Pre owner, I'm happy to look forward to WebOS 1.5 or 2.0.
I put my money on Palm having a Pre-production (pun intended) version of a WebOS tablet ready to go and just needed a sugar daddy to pay for manufacturing.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I'd say the real question is whether the can actually improve upon it, but I feel like it's obvious that they will certainly try (otherwise they just wasted $1.2 billion, but I wouldn't be too shocked considering it's HP).
Will it run Flash?
Could they pick a tackier or more insensitive name?
The interface would be especially appealing if it came with all those apps.
I've been hearing a lot about tablets lately. There are so many to choose from, but they are also very expensive. You sound like you know a lot about tablets, so maybe you can help me out. Why should I spend a lot of money buying a tablet from Apple or HP, when instead I could just reach into my toilet bowl and grab something hand-held that's just as shitty, but at a very small fraction of the cost?
It could be but lets be fair.
WebOS has a better UI than Android.
WebOS has Multitasking which even iPhoneOS only sort of kinda has.
The one area that WebOS really was weak in was the SDK. The whole "javascript+HTML" thing is very limiting. The new PDK will give you access to C and some real performance and hardware access.
From just a UI point of view WebOS is a better choice than both of those for a tablet.
So maybe it will be a good alternative to both.
You know this desire to have a "Standard" really isn't a good thing. There was a lot of innovation and excitement when we had Apple, Atari, Commodore, Ti, Radioshack, and goodness knows how many others fighting it out.
When IBM came and "created" a standard the standard SUCKED. The 8088 was a terrible CPU with a terrible ISA. Systems like the Atari ST, and Amiga which where cheaper, more powerful, and offered features that MS-DOS wouldn't have for years could never compete.
Do we really want to dismiss alternative this early in a new and important market like the mobile space?
I mean lets be honest it would have been easy to say that the iPhone was going to be an also ran to WinCE/Mobile and PalmOS. I mean look how many devices and applications those OSs had!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No, they wouldn't have to go with ARM. WebOS is linux based, they'd just need to recompile the kernel and libraries, and include whatever drivers are needed for the slate hardware. Oh, and a boot loader, I guess. None of that takes long to do tho - Hell, they might have already done it.
In fact, the webOS sdk runs on a virtual x86 cpu with virtualbox. It's just a cross-compile of the kernel and libs with hardware drivers for the VirtualBox hardware.
Dear HP,
Please release a WebOS rom/image/update/etc for all the Palm TX's and other Palm devices that are already out there but probably not being used on account of stagnant OS software and applications.
I believe many of these devices are capable of running WebOS and you could create a community almost overnight. I'm sure I'm not the only geek looking at my TX wishing I could use it in some meaningful capacity again.
Yay me! ^^
I think this is a good move for HP. The slate would have been the same as all the tablet pc's that came before it which basically failed in the market. A web OS tablet might be a decent competitor to the iPad.
Prior to having been given a G1 over the weekend, I didn't think very highly of Android OS. It strongly reminded me of the Windows Mobile scene I was involved in when I had my WinMo devices (Treo 750, HTC Excalibur/Raphael), which was anything but pleasant. However, as I spend more time with the device, I am constantly growing fonder of it. It's very versatile, extremely expansive and, in my opinion, is a mobile OS that actually has the potential to double as a useful and appropriate OS for tablet computing.
With that said, how does WebOS stack up against Android? On the whole, is it a stronger or weaker OS, and how much more difficult is it to develop for? I haven't yet tried making apps for the Android, but I've heard that it's very straightforward.
The IBM PC was more powerful than other systems at the time, and the 8088 was probably the highest performance/$ processor available, and had a better ISA than the 6800 series CPUs, IMNSHO. IBM didn't force anyone to buy PCs; they caught on because they were more powerful and reasonably priced. The 68000 was far too expensive at the time, and the inexpensive systems using it, the Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari ST, didn't arrive for another 4 years. By this time, the compelling reason to buy a PC or clone was for the huge software library.
Don't care about what OS it ships with as long as it can be nuked to replace it with Ubuntu/Debian.
The big question I can see though is: where does this leave Microsoft? Suddenly, the general feeling seems to be that Windows 7 isn't up to the tablet task. Which leaves Microsoft with nothing on the market. OK, you've got Bill Gates making some vague declarations of "doing something with a stylus", but there's nothing concrete. Win 7 doesn't cut it, Windows Phone 7 isn't out yet and probably isn't adapted to tablets. The world's premier OS manufacturer appears to have nothing to offer a whole new segment of personal computing. Apple, Google, HP... lone warriors fighting it out on planet tablet. The usual suspect nowhere to be seen.
I think it was obvious from the start that the Palm acquisition was all about WebOS and tablets, not smart phones. Anyone else see this purchase and cancelation of Slate as a huge setback for Microsoft? It's basically a public admission by HP that Windows can't cut as a tablet OS.
HP just broke their direct dependence on Microsoft for an emerging market for a good reason: Microsoft's failure to produce an innovative user interface for tablets.
Which leaves RIM, which has good solution for business and has a large market of consumers who want to look like important business people, and the dwindling share of Windows Mobile, some reports indicate a 50% drop in market share since fall of last year.
The fact that iPhone is more closed that some people want causes pain, but would you rather have a company like MS suing everyone that uses OSS software on the mobile platform? I think we can just celebrate that with Google and Apple producing good products using OSS, we can stop wasting time on the Open versus Proprietary debate, and just produce many different good products from which people can choose.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
When IBM came and "created" a standard the standard SUCKED. The 8088 was a terrible CPU with a terrible ISA. Systems like the Atari ST, and Amiga which where cheaper, more powerful, and offered features that MS-DOS wouldn't have for years could never compete.
sort of like the iPad and printing?
It's just a big Palm Pre? What a ripoff! /sarcastic
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
This makes no sense. You really expect content developers to spend money creating an hardware/OS specific version of their apps for each device?
There will be a common, cross-platform runtime, because the people who pay for content creation want one.
hp just reengineer the old palm os to work with e-ink.
maybe a cheap eink mobile phone. that would rock.
. . . out of their product by removing Intel's processor and Microsoft Windows? Well, there you go.
It's webOS, lowercase "w."
"I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
I've used a Palm Pre, it's UI is slick, intuitive and a joy to use.
Then I tried to get an SSH client, there isn't one as far as I could tell. I thought "oh that's fine I'll use VNC web access" but then remembered it's implemented as a Java applet. The browser sucked, Gmail got stuck in infinite reloading loops when it wasn't outright crashing the browser (to be fair it didn't crash the OS). I tried finding an application repository, no joy. I tried an h.264 video, no support. I looked at developing for it, then found I couldn't use programming languages, I was forced to cludge together "applications" with document mark up languages. I gave up.
I'll stick to Android. (iPhone works but you can't help but feel like your taking it up the ass from some guy in a turtle neck)
Not really. The 8088 in the PC was clocked at only 4.77 MHZ by that time multiple vendors where shipping Z-80s that where clocked at 6 or even 8 MHZ. The larger address space really didn't come in to play at that time since the PC ships standard with 16k and maxed out at 256k. Also 6502s at two to three Mhz where also available.
I would also say that the it is arguable that the x86 ISA was better then the 6809.
The 68000 was available at that time and frankly would have been fine at the HUGE price point that IBM introduced the PC.
The Amiga and ST where every bit the match in performance for the much more expensive AT.
The PC sold because of IBMs name. I was there and everybody thought IBM==computers.
The PC was a TERRIBLE standard but one we got stuck with.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You'll get no argument from me that the IBM standard "sucked." And I owned a Vic-20, C-64, as well as an Amiga.
However, the alternatives were NOT cheaper. By the time I got an Amiga in 1986, IBM clones were down to the $500 range while the Amiga was $1295 or thereabouts.
Having a standard (which I suppose Android is closest to being) results in cheaper computers.
You only use the document markup language to create the layout. Everything else is scripted. The script itself defines which HTML is used, not the other way round. Also, h.264 works fine on my Pre.
I'd say the real question is whether the can actually improve upon it
Maybe they can partner with Adobe to exchange some of their great technology.
If HP and Adobe can combine the power consumption of Flash with the security and update features of Acrobat Reader, I imagine HP can build a tablet that will auto-update and reboot continuously every time you turn it on, until the battery dies a half hour later.
And, in return, Adobe can get "virtual ink cartridge" technology HP, where it costs $75 to replenish the "virtual ink" to display a PDF.
That all depends on how nice this WebOS tablet looks, feels and works. Customers have already shown that they're willing to give up some of the niceties of a "real OS" for look and feel, so it really just comes down to how nice the tablet looks and if it feels nice in the hands and if you can do some zoomy stuff with your fingers on the interface.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Was it doing that with the full-blown version of gmail or the mobile version?
Its still better than the plan for the fifth version: HPV
There will be a common, cross-platform runtime, because the people who pay for content creation want one.
Yes there will. And it will be called HTML5.
"[8088] had a better ISA than the 6800 series CPUs ... [IBM] caught on because they were more powerful and reasonably priced..."
No-ish, and definitely No.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I have SSH running on my Pre. If you get 'Preware' installed on you phone (some guides over at precentral.net), use that to install the console and command line utilities. An SSH client is included in that.
(I can even use a VPN app to tunnel into my work network to check on some machines if need be :)
FUNK!
There is an SSH client, there is also a VNC client. Why would you use the browser for gmail when support for gmail is built into the mail application and gmail is a synergy client? Sounds to me like you were using it about a year ago when it first came out, how many browser's supported h.264 a year ago? Applications can be written in C using the PDK and before that the webosinternals SDK...sounds like you didn't look very hard for anything.
When IBM came and "created" a standard the standard SUCKED. The 8088 was a terrible CPU with a terrible ISA. Systems like the Atari ST, and Amiga which where cheaper, more powerful, and offered features that MS-DOS wouldn't have for years could never compete
To be fair, DOS was only IBM's blunder in the selection of what they bought for Microsoft (and how Microsoft managed to mangle it into it's later states). The 8088 was chosen because the better 8086 was too expensive (and anything better than that was astronomically expensive), and the ISA bus allowed the easy creation of various add-ons for the PC which helped make it the dominant hardware platform pretty quickly in an era where such things were not decided by "gee, does it run Windows?"
But otherwise, I do understand your point.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
There will be a common, cross-platform runtime, because the people who pay for content creation want one.
You're right on the money. For a geek forum, i find it hard that people never mention preferential attachment. There is only space for three: a huge leader, a much smaller follower, and a small niche player. I believe the order will see in 2 years is Android, iPhone, and Palm.
I think the deal can work, but the only way this can work is if nobody at HP is ever allowed inside Palm. Ever. Just send them the money and let them work. (One exception: Palm's marketing and advertising team should be sent to Gitmo bay). AND WHERE THE F is the pre internationally???
I was talking about the Instruction Set Architecture when I used ISA. The ISA buss wasn't terrible for the time but they should have use the S-100 buss since it was a standard already. Of course IBM also reversed the gender on the serial port adapter from the standard and then used the serial port gender and a DB-25 connector for the parallel printer port instead of the standard Centronics printer port..
And had no dedicated arrow keys on the keyboard and a messed up keyboard layout.
The truth is that PC was thrown together out of spare parts and bits. IBM used the 8088 because they already used it in the Display writer!
The PC was really at test balloon. IBM was seeing if people would buy a PC from them. If it sold then IBM was going to make their REAL PC!
The PC sold too well and IBM was stuck with it.
Think about it. Do you think IBM would have created the PC. The one that would become that standard and use.
1. An Intel CPU.
2. An Operating System from Microsoft?
I mean really? IBM?
You think that IBM would create the standard PC that was so easy to clone that everybody and their dog could clone it? Even better clone it and make Intel and Microsoft rich and not pay IBM a dime?
Really? The monster that was IBM at the time?
Nope If IBM could do it all over again my bet is that the PC would have used an IBM CPU running a subset of the 360s ISA and an IBM OS.
Then IBM would have made as much money from the clones as Microsoft and Intel combined.
The PC was a terrible test system that was too big of hit to replace.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
PC clones where not down to 500 by then. I know I worked at computer store. I think the Sanyo 550 was close that but it wasn't really PC compatible.
Also it isn't fair to compare the Amiga to a PC. It was much closer to an AT class machine.
Here is a PC from around that time. The Z-148 it was priced around from $1899 to $2199. That was with one floppy and I think 256 k of ram. The Amiga 1000 that shipped at the same time cost around $1995 for one Floppy and 256k but they always would throw in the 512 and the second floppy. Both prices where for 1985 which is when both shipped.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I was talking about the Instruction Set Architecture when I used ISA. The ISA buss wasn't terrible for the time but they should have use the S-100 buss since it was a standard already.
No they shouldnt have... it would have marginalized that bus (cheaper peripherals and such).
The truth is that PC was thrown together out of spare parts and bits. IBM used the 8088 because they already used it in the Display writer!
Not according to IBM and Intel. The added cost of a full 16bit bus, support chips and of course the CPU made it too expensive to consider.
The PC was really at test balloon. IBM was seeing if people would buy a PC from them. If it sold then IBM was going to make their REAL PC! The PC sold too well and IBM was stuck with it. Think about it. Do you think IBM would have created the PC. The one that would become that standard and use. 1. An Intel CPU. 2. An Operating System from Microsoft?
Yes, I think they would have. No... I'm sorry, I should rephrase that. They HAD to as they were still under a consent decree with the government.
I mean really? IBM? You think that IBM would create the standard PC that was so easy to clone that everybody and their dog could clone it? Even better clone it and make Intel and Microsoft rich and not pay IBM a dime?
See consent decree above for part... and then take into account revenue on patent licensing. Some of those patents are still being licensed.
Really? The monster that was IBM at the time? Nope If IBM could do it all over again my bet is that the PC would have used an IBM CPU running a subset of the 360s ISA and an IBM OS. Then IBM would have made as much money from the clones as Microsoft and Intel combined. The PC was a terrible test system that was too big of hit to replace.
Yup... because they were a monster, and got in trouble for it, and were not going to be allowed to do it again.
Yes, IBM didnt expect the PC to go anywhere (it was barely a test), but no, there are many things they couldnt do that they probably wanted to.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
No. I expect the cross-platform runtime to be web applications, hosted in most cases on a server somewhere with a web frontend.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
"Not according to IBM and Intel. The added cost of a full 16bit bus, support chips and of course the CPU made it too expensive to consider."
Which is why they where using it in the Display Writer. The 8088 at this time was pretty much a failure well if not a failure it was just sort of their. Even the 8086 was just sort of their with little interest. The present was the Z-80 for business and 6502 for home. The future was going to be the 68000, Z-8000, and 32032.
"Yes, I think they would have. No... I'm sorry, I should rephrase that. They HAD to as they were still under a consent decree with the government."
Nope. IBM was under threat to be broken up. Frankly that threat really messed up the computer industry in a big way. The IBM mini-computer line was a real mess. IBM want to be sure that they could split it off with as a new company cleanly so they made sure it was very different from their big iron.
The S32 was nothing like the 360 and it's replacement the S38 was nothing like the 360 or the S32. IBM then came out with the S36 for the S32 users to migrate too.
From a customer point of view it was a terrible mess. If you started out with the S32 it was really painful to move to the S38. If you outgrew the S38 you had a super painful migration up to the 360-370 line.
But nothing stopped IBM from making their own CPUs and OS's. IBM actually made a PC360 that had a custom 68000 that ran 360 code.
So there was no legal reason that IBM couldn't have at least written it's own OS. The reason they didn't was that they thought it was just a test balloon.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Z80 = 8 bit
8088/8086 = 16 bit
In modern computing ... like working with your spreadsheet, thats already a massive speed increase at the same MHZ assuming you have instructions with sane clock cycle counts.
Clock speed doesn't mean shit, in general. I have 20mhz microcontrollers today that STILL can not keep up with an 8088/8086 core.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Z80 had register pairs. You could combine to eight bit registers into one 16 bit one.
Also you are talking about CPUs that had no FPUs anyway.
The 8088 just wasn't that big of an improvement over the Z80 and some people would say except for that added memory space it wasn't an improvement at all.
Frankly some would say even the expanded memory space wasn't a real improvement over just bank switching!
The whole 16 bit think was actually a lot of marketing hype. Also back then clock speed back then meant everything! CPUs in the micro world executed one instruction at a time, there was no cache, and if you where lucky memory worked at clock speed with no wait states!
The X86 had no real tick of tick advantage over the Z80.
Now the 6502 was a lot faster per clock than the Z80 and because it ran at a slower clock speed it never had any wait states.
The 6502 was the first risk chip.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
...and I really hope they put something - anything - on it besides Windows 7. The hardware is actually pretty nice - standard USB and SD card slots and a dock with more USB and an HDMI port.
I've used a Palm Pre, it's UI is slick, intuitive and a joy to use.
Then I tried to get an SSH client, there isn't one as far as I could tell.
There are two command line ones, DropBear and OpenSSH, in homebrew.
I thought "oh that's fine I'll use VNC web access" but then remembered it's implemented as a Java applet.
VNC clients are available, either via PalmOS emulation (they work fine) or via Linux framebuffer apps. Hopefully they'll work on getting X11, which is also available and works with remote X11 protocols, to cooperate with some VNC app soon for those who don't want to run one in "Classic", the emulator.
The browser sucked, Gmail got stuck in infinite reloading loops when it wasn't outright crashing the browser (to be fair it didn't crash the OS).
You were trying to view the desktop Gmail in a mobile browser?? That's bound to have usability issues on any phone. Besides, the email client supports Gmail. Use it. (Mutters about people using browsers for everything.)
I tried finding an application repository, no joy.
There is one major one, has over a thousand apps, patches, and themes. It's called PrewareIn addition, you can load beta apps for the app catalog using Preware or Appscoop, and other feeds you can put into Preware exist, mostly for testing, alternate kernels, and such.
I tried an h.264 video, no support. I looked at developing for it, then found I couldn't use programming languages, I was forced to cludge together "applications" with document mark up languages. I gave up.
You give up too easily. The PDK allows you to program in C/C++ for it with Linux frameworks - it's more Linuxy then than Android. Or you can develop using ordinary Linux apps Homebrew style, though for display you'll need to install X11 for SDL or program it to use SDL and/or OpenGLES if it's a game using the Homebrew toolkit or the official PDK. Even before they added SDL to the frameworks with firmware 1.3.5, WebOS is recognizably Linux in many ways that Android is not
You were trying to view the desktop Gmail in a mobile browser?? That's bound to have usability issues on any phone. Besides, the email client supports Gmail. Use it. (Mutters about people using browsers for everything.)
Depends what you mean by "usability issues" -- while it's of course somewhat cramped, it has no broken functionality (like the GP's infinite reloads and crashes) on the N900. If it had those problems, I think it's fair to say the browser sucked ass.
That said, the N900 (unlike the N810 I had before) actually has a non-broken email client, so I don't use gmail in the browser much anymore. I agree with you that the email client is generally a better choice, so this particular effect of a sucky browser shouldn't be an issue.
While not directly related to HP's tablet plans, there has been something that I've been wondering about to the point that I've almost submitted an Ask Slashdot article about.
Is HP back? More specifically is HP back as a decent producer of consumer products?
For those who might be younger there was a time when HP's consumer end products were bad. Further as a company they looked as if they were all about marketing and not the actual tech behind what they produced. They were still a 500 lb gorilla in the marketplace but they were flinging poop all over the place and all the other big gorillas, and the little chimps too, were starting to wonder if they were losing it.
Now I know a little behind what went on and most of what I know points to the failure of their CEO at the time Carly Fiorina. However it seemd like the whole corporate culture had gone into some sort of 80's era marketing is the only thing that is important mode. I read a lot of posts here talking about that very thing.
So while HP forced Carly out I wonder what their corporate culture is like today? I mean to dismiss marketing in business but HP went way too far in their value of it. Are they really back? Can I get excited about HP tech and if I buy something with an HP logo expect good things?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
HP is going to compete with the iPad one of these days. That "slate" thing never made it past the vaporware stage but their next vaporware device will do it. Yeah, right.
Here's my prediction: they'll be a day late and a dollar short and finally ship something that isn't really even competitive. It'll be unreliable, and their customer support will be typically useless. These devices will end up being sold at a big discount on Woot! as refurbs.
This is the company that knowingly shipped defective laptops and refused to fix or replace them - if they can do that with a well-defined category of product, just wait until you see what they do with a tablet.
Well, the browser has gotten better since it is now based on a later version of WebKit and V8 than before. I never have had infinite reloads and crashes here, even with desktop Gmail web browsing, though doing that on a screen the resoluton of the Pre's is for masochists only.
Incidentally this highlights another advantage of WebOS, frequent over the air updates that often add speed and functionality. Hopefully HP can keep up the pace that Palm has.
"there," not "their" you fuckwit.
It's an internet appliance!!
In the real world, perfect has no advantage over good enough.
Android is highly innovative and has significant momentum, Iphone has marketing and numbers. WebOS was stillborn then purchased by HP, where good ideas go to die. I'd prefer WebOS to anything bar Android but it's not going to happen.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
iLube is only 4.99 from the AppStore. You only need two tubes 3 ml tubes per session. Unfortunately GNULube was rejected due to a duplication of functionality
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Bzz wrong. The 6502 was not RISC. I quote the wikipedia:
"A Byte magazine article[citation needed] once referred to the 6502 as "the original RISC processor," due to its efficient, simplistic, and nearly orthogonal instruction set (most instructions work with most addressing modes), as well as its 256 zero-page "registers". The 6502 is technically not a RISC design however, as arithmetic operations can read any memory cell (not only zero-page), and some instructions (inc, rol etc.) even modify memory contrary to the basic load/store philosophy of RISC. Furthermore, orthogonality is equally often associated with "CISC". "
zosxavius photography
8088 is faster than a z-80?
Better bus? (ISA)
6800 development died with the 68060(?). x86 lives on today in even 64-bit architectures. You might say it is a terrible standard, but it still runs the last 30 years of software written for the IBM PC just fine. (well sorta anymore) I'm just saying that it could have ended up a lot worse. Apple could have won.
Sure the early IBM PCs were expensive. If cost was the issue, you weren't desirable as a customer to them anyways. This is the same company that would sell mainframes and then later sell upgrades for tens of thousands of dollars that involved a technician visiting the site and flipping a switch. PCs won out because they became the gold standard. DOS and later Windows 95 cemented that with Microsoft's total monopoly on the market. The software carried the PC standard, certainly not IBM.
You sound bitter. I don't really see why. The focus and refinement on one particular platform over 30 years has proven been very productive and has followed moore's law fairly well. The PC of today is really a small supercomputer and if anything my biggest disappointment is that software hasn't really kept up and all these extra cpu cycles seemed to be wasted on more and more bloat because the complexities of software development has pushed features as a priority over optimization. Sorry I'm pretty tired and the pens lost, so I'm kind of bummed. Forgive the long ramble. Falling asleep as I type thisssssssssssssssssssasdfmkasalkdnakjdbn
zosxavius photography
No. Webos is the name of a specific product so it is a proper noun so the first letter is always uppercase.
If it were a common noun it would not be capitalised at all, but the common noun of Webos is operating system.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The PC sold because of IBMs name. I was there and everybody thought IBM==computers.
I was there too and I would modulate the above statement to say: The Purchasing Dept. at mid-to-large sized corps thought IBM==computers; Many workers wanted Apples at first, but IBMs were the ones you could get past Purchasing without a ton of scrutiny or a rejection since the corps already had significant investment in IBM kit. Then in a few years it became "IBM and/or IBM compatibles" esp. when IBM PCs had somewhat populated the desktop and people were gaining experience with bargain machines (clones) in their homes.
So the early IBM PC explosion was predicated on the pretentious and vague assumption that the 5150 and successors somehow 'fit in' with IBM's mainframes. That, and the fact that your typical MIS dept. would take months or years to implement a basic new app or even a new schema within an existing app... oftentimes literally falling asleep at their desks for part of the day while your coworkers waited and waited.
The IBM PC was more expensive and the display & bus were crummy, but Purchasing would approve it... and then you could join up with other depts in their sneakernet end-run around the calcified MIS and their humongous mainframe terminals.
By the time Lotus 123 v2 came along, it was the established routine among professionals and the growing software base of the IBM PC/clones that mattered to other businesses that didn't have the IBM mainframe legacy.
Hmmm, 8 ball says "situation cloudy"
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
From just a UI point of view WebOS is a better choice than both of those for a tablet. So maybe it will be a good alternative to both.
Don't think so. Let's be real. The reason that most people choose Apple is the apps (8 billion served) They aren't too concerned about how incrementally better the OS is. Apple isn'tr the best, but the consumers don't care because it the most advertised, and does what they want to do
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Same reason to buy an iPhone or iPad today. It isn't the best, just better at what it does.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
The 68000 based 8 bit external bus equivalent (68008) did not become generally available until well after the 8088. Besides legacy CP/M application ports, using the 8088 allowed access to all of the existing cheap 8080 8 bit peripheral chips as well as narrower main memory.
Did Motorola even have a second source for the 68000 series at the time? When I dealt with them 10 years later, I ended up turning down their embedded processors just because of availability issues in spite of their great development support. I still have a pair of 68HC24 PLCCs for development work that took a year to acquire.
I do not remember the details but the Z80 clocking scheme and bus multiplexing were a little weird such that it took about double the clock rate to equal the performance of its contemporaries.
Actually it was the x86 that had a multipexed buss that caused a performance hit compared to the Z80.
If the program would fit in the 64k address space of the Z80 odds are very good that an 8Mhz Z80 would clean the 4.77 Mhz 8088s clock.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No not be the strict definition of RISC. That is to be expected since the 6502 predates the term RISC. But as you posted it was very RISC like in design and feel.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Fair enough. I found it interesting, so I looked it up and found that paragraph, which I also found interesting.
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The 68k was a much better CPU. You never had to deal with segments! It had a flat memory model from the start. Something Intel wouldn't have until the 386 came along many years later.
x86 and MS DOS Was a terrible standard that held back software development for years.
The X86 is slowly fixing a lot of it's issues but always at a cost. We finally got a flat address space with the 386 and then we finally got more registers when AMD gave use the X86-64 extensions.
Just because it works doesn't mean that it wasn't a long and painful road to get here.
And frankly It could have been a much better road.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
It wasn't just them Small businesses wanted them because now they could own a "real" computer.
Apple computers where for kids at home to play games on.
The flip side was we sold a lot of Kaypros to a nearby research center. Several of the folks there bought Osborne luggables and where buying moitors and cables to make them usable. They had a tiny screen. Once they saw the Kaypro which had a much bigger screen they where sold.
Then we had the Airforce bases that kept us in business with all the Zenith repairs and purchases.
Just to show how bad the PC really was. The Air Force standardized on the Z-100. The Z-100 cost about the same as a PC but...
It had both an 8088 or was it an 8086? and an 8085. It could run CP/M and Z-DOS which was a version of MS-DOS.
It also had much better graphics than the PC and used the S-100 bus.
Oh and had a MUCH better keyboard.
I think it only sold well to the military. We didn't move a lot of Zeniths until the 151, 158, 138, and so on came out and where PC compatible.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I just remember that there was something weird about the Z80 clocking which led to it running slower than the clock speed itself would indicate.