[TUHS] Re: LSX issues and musing

[steve jenkin <sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au>]

> On 3 Aug 2022, at 03:56, Gavin Tersteeg <gctersteeg@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  My target system (A Heathkit H11) does have the full 56K of memory,

I wasn’t aware of the Heathkit H11 in 1980. 
Did work with someone circa 1984 that owned a DEC device, a VT71 or VT72, that had an LSI-11 + Q-Bus inside.

The H11 wasn’t that differently priced to the IBM PC 3 years later, at least for an entry system.

Any ideas on why businesses didn’t pick up the H11 in 1980?
	[priced too high for hobbyists]

Possibly: Marketing, ’support’, form-factor/physical size, peripherals - no display / keyboard on H11, serial terminal - or ’software’ availability?
Price didn’t win the market. IBM’s 5150 was never “cheapest” or technically “best” at any time - hence rapid rise of (variable quality) clones, built down to a price.

Gates, Allen & Ballmer understood business users wanted “Off the Shelf Software" from Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s).
For ISV's to target/support MS-DOS 1.0, Microsoft provided a mechanical translation tool to convert from CP/M executable to MS-DOS.

Wikipedia says:

	1978: H11 US$1295 (kit) or US$1595 fully assembled ("4kword base system”) 
			display advert <http://www.decodesystems.com/heathkit-h11-ad-1.gif> $1295 kit + postage/freight, bare system, 8KB (4kword), 6 Q-bus slots free. ROM ?

	1981: IBM 5150(PC) US$1,565 for "16 KB RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, and no disk drives.”
			( I only saw 5150’s with 2x 5.25” 360KB floppies included - otherwise, can’t run programs & store files)
			( we had someone buy an almost clone with 2x 8” floppies, @ 1.2MB each to run a database they had, 320/360K didn’t cut it )

--
Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin