I live in an area with a large Korean population. I was often at my kids high school on Saturday mornings to help with band stuff, and that's when the school is used for Korean school, a big enterprise with about
800 kids being dropped off, and three people directing traffic. Very few Japanese cars. A lot of the Koreans will not buy a Japanese car, for the obvious reason, so you see a lot of Korean, American, and German cars.
The original Daewoo branded daiwoos were prety crappy cars too.
I worked for 5 years for a small high-end clone mfg here in Canada - the first PCs to be sold with a 3 year warranty. They were really good machines, at a very competetive price, until a beancounter took over the company with the help of a socalled "Harvard MBA" - between the 2 they killed the quality and bled the company into backrupsy within about 3 years. (I was gone in about 1 1/2)
They drive Bimmers ans Audballs too.
The 2009 to 2014 Genesis was not up to the Lexus. In 2015 they got it right.
Those same bean counters ran through my old employer's company destroying value while alleging to make us more efficient. I think they're soon to collapse with the coming changes in government contracting.
Compatibility-wise, I think the clones (good ones, anyway) really helped move the PC revolution along. My first *real* IBM PC cost over $5,000 (this is when full height diskette drives were also about $600). The clones helped force prices of all peripherals out of the IBM stratosphere and into the real world. Eventually I was buying the surplus IBM half-height diskette drives (from the botched PC JR) for $40 - quite a drop from $600.
Some of the clones offered options that even IBM didn't. One board I bought had 8 sockets for BIOS chips. That really fascinated my friend who liked to program in assembler.
Another AT clone had a CPU that wasn't artificially prevented from running at 8MHz like the IBM AT was for a while.
IIRC, the ultimate test of a PC's compatibility was:
"Can it run flight simulator?"
It really depended on the clone and what you were doing with it. I have seen compatibility issues and have worked through some of them, mostly with high-end graphics and with HW manufacturers deciding to cleverly make use of areas of memory IBM had marked as "resevered" in their tech manuals. Remember the days of EMS and expanded memory and programs like 386 to the Max?
I've purchased and seen some pretty wild looking CPU coolers. Big copper pad coolers that look like the Guggenheim museum. Coolers with thin fins spread out like a card-sharp's show-off deal. Never did get into overclocking in a big way so I never got into water-cooled rigs. Although I never saw much point in overclocking, a PC design engineer I talked to said that overclockers provided excellent feedback about PC designs and limitations because they were right on the bleeding edge.
Hey, even I am considering getting an iPhone because I was unimpressed by the Android "industry's" reaction to the StageFright bug. It also torques me up to see that every damn version of Android is slightly different.
Apple controls their whole eco-system and generally delivers a more uniform experience. When the StageFright bug was found, Google, Samsung and others appeared to stall, pointing fingers at others while trying to decide who should fix what. Apple just mostly fixes the stuff without the corporate drama.
I've read a number of case studies that ask why Apple makes virtually all the profit in the cell phone industry. (Really, only Samsung makes a profit - the rest operate at a loss).
The reason is partly snob appeal but it's also because Apples seem to be very well-liked by the people that use them. Far more so than Android users like their phones.
As for politics, my wife, a retired Army colonel somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun, loves her iPhone. I've always been on the PC/clone side of the Apple/Wintel war, but I will probably end up getting an iPhone. If it's going to become the hub of my computer operations, I want it to come from a company that's on the ball.
Most of the folks that I know who are into Macs "just want it to work". They tend not to use esoteric software (e.g., just a "productivity suite") so can live with the more restrictive offerings that seem to be available to the Apple world. OTOH, they don't want to have to spend an afternoon coercing a printer to interoperate with their computer. Or, deal with DLL hell, The Registry, etc.
A neighbor who frequently called me to sort out his "PC problems" bought a Mac about two years ago. I've not heard from him (wrt computer problems) since then! So, either he has decided he doesn't need all those programs and peripherals that he needed previously on his PC (doubtful!) *or* the Mac manages to make it easier for him to make it work without my involvement.
[He's a Republican, if that matters :> ]Old (e.g., 68K) Macs were always BUILT much better than PC's of similar vintage. But, running MacOS was just impractical (for the sorts of applications that *I* want). And, they were terribly underpowered (esp for the price).
Mac is just for general consumers. Is there a Mac used as server? I had assembled a few PC clone to control mould making machine using laser beam. Using top quality power supply, memory, 3D capable high res. graphics card, enterprise class HD. None ever had trouble. This boxes run only specific application 24/7. Cutting a mould from special alloy block often takes for days. My SIL owns the shop. Always too much work to do. Even he makes helicopter engine mounts for military helicopters. Many things for oil field equipment, etc. He makes mould for something like RJ45 jack. He is mechanical engineer by training. Couldn't be happier quitting his desk job and starting his own business.
Yes, there are several 1U Mac servers. Now considerably more practical as OSX isn't *entirely* geared to single users (as MacOS was)
PC's have come a long way since the early/mid 80's. And, applications are now largely prevented from diddling with specifics of the hardware as they could "in the old days". E.g., I have software that won't work with USB serial ports, USB parallel ports, etc. but, instead, requires *genuine* hardware ports. One early ecad program required a special mouse card and mouse! (the application talked directly to the mouse, not a "driver layer")
I've not regretted setting out on my own, decades ago. It let me decide how I wanted to spend my days -- instead of someone else TELLING me how they would be spent.
I *do* miss not having a "stationery cupboard" that I could raid for supplies without worrying about restocking it. Similarly, it would be nice to be able to have a technician order parts for prototypes instead of having to do so, myself. I.e., the "grunt work" that I can't pawn off on someone else as would be the case in a 9-to-5.
OTOH, the idea of having employees would be worse (to me) than having a *boss*!
Side note, any one wired up an old Imsai box? Did not play with Z80 cpu? At very early stage we could assemble Apple II clone. Apples big thing was using GUI(point and click) on thier OS pretty early.
What SIL did was gathered round some class mates to form core of the place. All employees participate in profit sharing. Still he says HR is always stressful. He just turned 40. His goal is to retire at 50. Move to small Alpine town where daughter can practice(rural family medicine). They are avid mountain people, trekking, rock climbing, ice climbing, skiing, etc.
I would think it would be *moreso* because "everyone has a stake" ("You can't fire me! I'm a part owner!") and all are/were "friends".
One of the best things (retrospectively) in my career was NOT going into business with my best friend. We had complimentary talents, similar outlooks/goals, etc. But, in hindsight, he opted for security and profits while I opted for diversity and "adventure". I.e., this would have turned up sooner or later and soured our relationship.
I live in fear of "forced" retirement -- i.e., when my mind or body can no longer keep up with the goals that I set for myself. My current project has me taxed to the limits of my abilities -- so much so that, for the first time in my career, I actually wonder if I can pull it off!
I have no idea what to do *after* this as I'm sure whatever goal I set
*would* be unattainable! :<
My first products were i4004 and i8080/8085 based. I spent a *lot* of time with the Z80 -- I suspect I could still "hand assemble" machine code (i.e., 16r01xxxx,
16r11xxxx, 16r21xxxx are the "LXI" opcodes (LD BC/DE/HL), 16r76 is HLT, etc.)Zilog's most coloosal blunder was in not leveraging their Z80 successes (Z280, Z8000, Z80000, Z380, etc.) effectively. They had to rely on Hitachi to breathe continued life into the family with the '180 devices...
I always miss Z80 vs. i8080. Got tired of wire wrapping and bought a battery powered wrap gun. At times I found Gardener Denver's mis-wiring trouble-shooting back panels later on. Tracing wiring was not that difficult, all the wiring complex was available in micro fiche. I was one man crew, so having a boss was just that. My rank was higher than his on company pay grade. Any way I never put him in any kinda jam on technical issues causing customer irritation.
A friend bought me an electric GD gun as a bday gift. I also had a "cut and strip" bit (feed kynar wire through hole in bottom of bit, pull out through an opening in the outer sleeve, pull trigger and wire is cut to length, stripped and wrapped in one shot)
A small crochet hook was indispensible for fishing wires out of the "rats nest". I worked on large 2 ft x 6 ft panels (military work) where you were dealing with *thousands* of components on a single panel (power supplied by 3/4" square -- cross sectional -- copper "buss bars" running the length of the panels).
Uncle Monster posted for all of us...
. The cars shared a common chassis and mechanical parts but the Chrysler fr om the plant in Canada was put together better. I believe it had more to do with the caliber of the auto workers at the different plants than the vehi cle design. After I sorted out any problems the cars had, they were reliabl e and relatively trouble free but nothing like a bullet proof 65 Dart. ^_^
Sorry, I guess this was before pleather. ricky still demanded it...
We has 20Mhz PCs using Harris chips - and we built 12mhz ATs whenIBM was doing good to get 8 - and soon had 24s running stable, and selling for less than "Big Blue" sold their 8. We also had CDRom long before IBM did - as well as providing larger hard drives. Lots of features that pushed "big Blue" ahead. The Tier 2 mfgs were also technically "clones" - including AST, Packard Bell, Compaq, HP, Sanyo, etc.
All Trillium clones passed ALL compatability tests.
The university where my wife worked in Health Services used Mac Medical, on macintosh computers, with a mac based server. It was down more than my windows network.
Macintosh -
Machine Always Crashes If Not The Operating System Hangs
I wasn't impressed. Nor was she.
snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca posted for all of us...
I had a Mitsu Dodge Ram p/u (small) head cracked. I liked it, had fun driving it. No fun fixing it. Gone...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.