Greetings ..
piranarew wrote:I know that IBM revolutionized computing but why are other companys allowed to use the same technology when IBM really came up with the first part. Think about it since lucas arts made star wars disney can not make a sequel to star wars even if it was a different plot. Why doesn't the same apply to computers.
Actually, IBM put its Personal Computer together based on already established hardware/software that was either acquired from or licensed thru others. Two key elements that fueled the IBM-PC were Intel's 8088 (part 8-bit, part 16-bit) processor chip and Microsoft's PC-DOS Operating System. PC-DOS was a modification of QDOS - aka "Quick and Dirty Operating System".
QDOS, originally written for the fully 16-bit Intel 8086, had been purchased by Microsoft from Seattle Computer Products for just $50,000 - and nothing more. Microsoft cleverly (ahh, sneakingly?) hid the fact that they were buying QDOS to help cement a software licensing deal with IBM - a deal involving untold jillions in royalties for Microsoft, who kept ALL OF THE RIGHTS to the software.
In reality,we should call it the Microsoft-Intel PC, because in fact, 33% of the profit share went to Microsoft and and another 33% went to Intel. IBM got most of the remaining 33%.
Now, one part of the IBM-PC was IBM's alone - the ROM-BIOS chip. So, if you wanted to make your own IBM PC clone, you could get MS-DOS via license from Microsoft (who knew all along that the clone business would happen), and you could get all working parts, except for the IBM ROM-BIOS chip, right off the shelf.
Various legalities made getting an IBM ROM-BIOS chip virtually impossible without having go thru Big Blue itself. So, a group of technicians did what is known as reverse engineering - drawing up specifications for a ROM-BIOS chip that would behave exactly like IBM's, but would not violate any patent-copyright laws.
The result of their work was the Compaq personal computer. Suddenly, ROM-BIOS chips joined all other PC parts on the shelf, companies such as Dell and Gateway sprang up - along with your friendly local homebrew stores, and the IBM clones eventually took over the market.
Wham! Bam! Thank You, IBM!
UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)
3.0 
