Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th Sep 2012 20:08 UTC
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Take off the rose-coloured glasses when recalling distant past ...the times of 8-bit micros were almost abusive with what they offered for the price, slow hw barely able to do anything useful, and tremendous amounts of lock-in into particular systems back then.
It's ironic that you seem to blame the PC standard (PC being what killed off 8-bit micros) of abuses and stagnation - while in fact, the vast Wintel ecosystem brought us tremendous capabilities for great prices. It also brought powerful commodity hardware for inexpensive *nix workstations, and alternative operating systems in general...
Edited 2012-10-04 00:09 UTC




Member since:
2007-08-20
While I prefer open platforms, and currently use Android, I really hope BB10 is successful in the marketplace.
Not only do I have a soft spot in my heart for QNX, but (as my username indicates) I firmly believe that customers are only treated fairly when there are several viable competitors.
The more, the better, in fact. My favorite time in PC history was the TRS-80 / Apple II / Atari 400/800 / Commodore VIC20 / C-64 / TI 99 / etc. era. Every platform tried something new. Some worked, some didn't, but all were interesting and creative.
At least in software terms, the current mobile OS wars feel a little bit like that. (Back then, the hardware was the star of the show.) Hopefully more competitors like BB10 and the HTML5 club (and Jolla, WebOS, etc.) will keep it interesting for a while.
Dominant standards make it easier for developers and businesses, but they inevitably cause stagnation and customer abuse.