Any other computer threads to suggest?

hammo1j

Donor
Yours in total nerditude:

1. WI the LEFT OUTER JOIN was included in the original SQL standard? Big omission meant loads of different ways by different vendors.

2. WI 68000 (much superior to 8088) for the IBM pc?

3. WI PL/1 had triumphed? Brilliant programming language from 1964 - multitasking/threading, structured programming much superior to C but the programmers of the time stuck with COBOL.

4. WI Network databases instead of relational? 20X faster they do the same job better but relational better marketing.

5. WI all computer chicks were hot babes like Sandra Bullock in the Net?

Still think the IT Crowd is shite tho'
 
Apple doesn't win lawsuit against its clones.... resulting in more apple II clones

Commodore buys Apple.

No 'Home Computer' industry at all... so in 2008, people still timeshare on Mainframes :)
 
You could get national internets like you have national telephone networks, in fact if you had looked forward from the early 1980s it would have seemed far more logical to have ended up so

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
No 'Home Computer' industry at all... so in 2008, people still timeshare on Mainframes :)

I think, unless the microprocessor never gets invented, which I'd find hard to believe, there would at least be business micros and computer-like devices in people's homes (set-top boxes, games consoles etc.)
 
I think, unless the microprocessor never gets invented, which I'd find hard to believe, there would at least be business micros and computer-like devices in people's homes (set-top boxes, games consoles etc.)

The VT100 terminal had a microprocessor also.
If a lot of bandwidth to the home and office were available circa 1980, and the direction home computing took was terminals in the home connected to distributed mainframe computers at the telephone switching centers or other centralized facilities.
 
WI: Commodore didn't run out of money waiting for the second batch of Amiga CD32s to come off the assembly line?

WI: The C64GS was a commercial success and challeneged Nintendo and Sega?

WI: Jack Tramiel didn't defect to Atari?

WI: The Laserdisc rapidly came down in price making Panasonic contenders?

WI: Apple didn't tell Microsoft to get stuffed in 1984?

WI: Apple didn't insist on retaining a 55% profit margin per unit sold?

WI: John Sculley was listened to?

WI: BASIC was taught alongside mathematics in schools?
 
WI: Apple didn't tell Microsoft to get stuffed in 1984?

WI: John Sculley was listened to?

? Apple didn't tell Microsoft to get stuffed, in fact they cut them too good a deal to get Word. Do you mean Apple signs a better deal and latter wins the patent war against Windows?

About what?
 
Go back to say 1985.

Apple Mac sales despite great publicity are very poor in 1984-1985
Apple III is a recent disaster
Atari is bleeding to death in a sea of red ink
Commodore 64 is unassailable, the best selling computer ever, and will continue to sell in huge volumes for about another decade
Commodore Amiga is on the horizon, superior to the Mac on price and performance
Commodore has their own FAB, and therefore has an apparently unassailable technical advantage on things like graphics chips over Apple, plus all but a few computer companies
Commodore has massive vertical component integration so has an apparently unassailable price advantage over Apple, and virtually everybody except IBM and TI - but TI have dropped out of the home computer business
Commodore has an impressive workstation (Commodore UNIX machine) apparently ready to be released.


If somebody said in 20 years that Commodore would be history, and Apple would be the 2nd computer company, a lot of people would say ASB
 
? Apple didn't tell Microsoft to get stuffed, in fact they cut them too good a deal to get Word. Do you mean Apple signs a better deal and latter wins the patent war against Windows?

About what?

Apple wanted to sign licencing deals with Microsoft in 1984 over their applications but Jean-Louis Glassee was adamant that Apple should not sign any agreement that would cut into their obscene profit margins and so several agreements collapsed because of this egomania - in effect, Apple kept telling Microsoft to get stuffed and to be more "reasonable". Fortunately, Microsoft had several aces to play, not least Windows 1.0 and they ended up burying the competition.
 

hammo1j

Donor
Less popularity of C and C++ would have resulted in a lot more stability and reliability of applications.

For example wordperfect's spreadsheet could handle a much bigger SS than excel at the time, but was let down with continuous crashes from the C or C++ it was written in.

If another language was adopted it might have survived to today...
 
Apple wanted to sign licencing deals with Microsoft in 1984 over their applications but Jean-Louis Glassee was adamant that Apple should not sign any agreement that would cut into their obscene profit margins and so several agreements collapsed because of this egomania - in effect, Apple kept telling Microsoft to get stuffed and to be more "reasonable". Fortunately, Microsoft had several aces to play, not least Windows 1.0 and they ended up burying the competition.

As far as I recall Apple was so desperate to keep Word they signed away their patent rights to the entire idea of GUIs which doesn't quite square.

Linky?
 
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