[ianai]

I definitely wish more recent tech had gone the standardized way similar to how IBM standardized computer building. We’re into four decades of being able to build PCs from customized/off the shelf parts because IBM didn’t go the “make it impossible”/proprietary route.

[gumby]

Actually that credit goes to COMPAQ. IBM used commodity parts to save money but it was COMPAQ who famously cloned the BIOS a and made IBM-alikes against IBM’s wishes.

But by then the cat was out of the bag: IBM tried to achieve a proprietary beachhead with Micro Channel (and OS/2) but that added value for IBM, not the customer.

[com2kid]

Don't forget that Microsoft maintained momentum in this area. MS loved having open standards because it let MS pit OEMs against each other, causing hardware prices to drop while Windows license prices stayed the same.

[flir]

This is why at one point all the big players in open source were hardware manufacturers. The software tries to commoditize the hardware, and the hardware tries to commoditize the software.