Charles on… anything that comes along

I unpack the HP/Amiga and look over the packing list. According to HP, the base version will be only $599, but that’s without any kind of storage. If you want to add a hard drive, that’s another $500. The good news is that flash memory has gotten pretty cheap, so HP has equipped the system with 128MB of of flash memory and a whopping 1GB hard drive.

I hear the phone chime insistently, so I run back to the office and pick it up. It’s the PR person for IBM. She seems particularly chirpy today. “Have you given more thought to taking a look at our latest PC?”

I sigh inwardly, but remain diplomatic. “I’m not sure I have the bandwidth now. Our readers are more into the home-brew scene, and they’re not likely to be interested in a PC as expensive as yours. Plus, aren’t IBM’s more for businesses?”

“Well, we want to announce that we’re dropping the price. The hardware is now under $2,000, with a 20GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM and a color monitor”.

“Hmm, that is impressive. What about the OS?”

“We still offer CP/M 2006 at $395, but we’re working on a new OS based on our mainframe VM that should be out any day now. Also, we have a home office bundle that includes Lotus and WordPerfect for only $995.”

“What about graphics?”

“Well, we think text-based systems are what users really want.”

I sigh. “Well, look, give me a call next week, after I dig out from some of my current projects.”

It’s a scarily accurate tale of how fragmented the world of computing would be without Bill and the boys. I remember working with CP/M and DR-DOS and all the merry bunch back in the early 1980s. It was hell - I never could remember what the command to list the files was between different OSs. And that’s before you got to the different disk sizes and formats…