10-12-14 20:49 Alan Zisman wrote to Ed Vance about Windows shutdown   
      
    AZ> @MSGID: <543BAC01.13442.windowsa@capcity2.synchro.net>   
    AZ> On 2014-10-11, 5:02 AM, Ed Vance -> Roger Nelson wrote:   
    EV> 10-10-14 15:24 Roger Nelson wrote to Daryl Stout about Windows shutdown   
      
    RN>> @MSGID: <54390901.13433.windowsa@capcity2.synchro.net>   
    RN>> @REPLY: <5438593D.13428.windowsa@capcity2.synchro.net>   
    RN>> On Mon May-21-1990 15:42, Daryl Stout (1:19/33) wrote to ROGER   
    RN>> NELSON:   
   -snip-   
    DS>>   He did say that "640K of RAM ought to be enough for anybody".   
   -snip-   
    EV> Not too long ago I saw a article that said Bill Gates denied saying   
    EV> those words.   
      
    AZ> Whether BG said that or not, let's put it in context - at the   
    AZ> time the IBM PC was released - with 64kb RAM as the default, I   
      
   Yep!, a lot of folks had 256KB or even 512KB of RAM.   
   I'd have to look for some of the old catalogs I used to get to see   
   how much Money 64KB or 128KB RAM modules costs back then.   
      
    AZ> believe, most personal computers of the day had those sorts of   
    AZ> limited memory... 64kb on the Commodore 64 which was for a   
    AZ> couple of decades the highest selling personal computer model.   
      
   CBM Basic had 38911 Bytes Free when the C=64 was turned on.   
   After I bought mine the sales advertisements started saying C=64's had   
   Microsoft Basic.   
   The BASIC ROM says CBMBASIC in the ones I have.   
   And having the Kernal in a second ROM IC let the C=64 start up   
   immediately.   
   Same thing for their 1541 Floppy Disk Drive.   
      
    AZ> If anything, at the time the 640 kb limit would within a few   
    AZ> years become a problem, they would have been laughed at...   
      
    AZ> The Intel 8088 CPU used in the IBM PC could address a maximum   
    AZ> of 1024 kb of memory; IBM wanted to partition that memory space   
    AZ> into 512 kb of user-accessible memory and 512 kb that was   
    AZ> limited to add-in cards (video RAM, etc). Microsoft fought hard   
    AZ> - and eventually won - to divide that into 640 kb for   
    AZ> user-accessible memory and 384 kb for system add-ins.   
      
   And IIRC the price tag for it was near $10,000 USD .   
      
    AZ> Note that when the IBM PC was released, customers could opt for   
    AZ> several different operating systems for it - Microsoft's DOS   
    AZ> (called IBM PC DOS) was only one of them, but the one that   
      
   Yes, I remember reading they bought a Operating System from someone in   
   the Seattle area and renamed it.   
   But there were a couple of OS's that folks used with the XT besides the   
   one IBM let MS developed for them.   
   -xnip-   
    RN>> Yes, but I read somewhere last year in a tech article that he   
    RN>> admitted his biggest mistake was Ctrl-Alt-Del.  The article   
    RN>> didn't expand on what he meant, so I can only conclude that no   
    RN>> one was swift enough to ask the question.  I'll do some further   
    RN>> digging after I'm well into Windows 10, which has done some   
    RN>> strange things here.  (-:   
      
      
    AZ> I believe the context of that quote was around the use of   
    AZ> Ctrl-Alt-Del for logging onto Windows NT - not for rebooting a   
    AZ> DOS session.   
      
   That is what I read in the Wikipedia article about it.   
      
    AZ> The requirement to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in always seemed   
    AZ> odd to me... why have to press anything in order to get a   
    AZ> log-in window?   
      
   Or click Start to shut down.   
      
   WTEN probably will have something in it for professionals to scratch   
   their heads over.   
      
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