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by jasomill
102 days ago
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IBM never open sourced their BIOS, but they did publish complete source code listings: https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/pc/6025008_PC_Technical_Ref... https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/xt/1502237_PC_XT_Technical_... https://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/at/1502494_PC_AT_Technical_... Between this and the fact that their PC-DOS (née MS-DOS) license was nonexclusive, I'm honestly not sure what they expected to happen. The nature of early IBM PC advertising suggests to me that they expected the IBM name and established business relationships to carry as much weight as the specifications itself, and that "IBM PC compatible" systems would be no more attractive than existing personal computers running similar if not identical third-party software (PC-DOS wasn't the only example of IBM reselling third-party software under nonexclusive license), and would perhaps even lead to increased sales of first-party IBM PCs. Which, in fact, they did, leading me to believe the actual result may have been not too far from their original intent, only with IBM capturing and holding a larger share of the pie. |
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