Re: Did Commodore cheat with the quad density floppies?

...and pray that it doesn't balkanize into the hell spawn marketing
nightmare that was the PS/2...

-Thom

On Tue, Jan 8, 2019 at 12:31 PM Jim Brain <brain@jbrain.com> wrote:

> On 1/8/2019 11:00 AM, Mike Stein wrote:
>
> A question for those folks who think that the twisted cable was a hardware-crippling hack by incompetent "engineers":
>
> IDE drives & cables essentially did the same thing, modifying the cable by cutting one wire so that CS could be implemented.
>
> Is that the same thing? Is it really unacceptable to use a modified cable in order to be able to just plug in a drive anywhere without having to worry about Master/Slave jumpers?
>
>
> Inasmuch as this conversation is akin to tilting at windmills, I will
> place my useless opinion in the mix:
>
> I believe they are the same thing, once you factor in the time periods.
> As the PC revolution was starting, minimizing jumper setting needs for
> drives with a cable twist feels justified.  Obviously, SD disagrees, but
> requiring the jumpers would also have angered some folks, so you can't win.
>
> I caveat my agreement with the time period, because the absolute
> similarity is lacking.  As others have noted, CS and the chopped cable
> "added" value without removing the master slave jumper options.  IN that
> way, it offers value of less configuration without sacrificing any previous
> capability.  The cable flip does limit drive options (and, I would love to
> put 4 FDDs on my older PC here, so it is relevant to me).
>
> Regardless of whether folks concur with my position or not is of no
> concern to me.  But, as an engineer, I align more with Mike Stein on this
> argument.  Even if folks completely disagree with the engineering decisions
> made by IBM or Commodore or whoever, I implore you to not diminish or
> demonize the engineers who worked on the product.  The decisions were made
> in the presence of a great number of constraints that we may never know
> about.  It's a personal pet peeve that we sit on this list and judge the
> engineers and the decisions they made in the 1980s by comparing it to what
> we now know about the market and technology.  It's highly non-productive,
> in my opinion.
>
> I think we can all agree that IBM of the 1980s was a behemoth and did not
> move quickly.  I choose to think there were some bright engineers in IBM
> who loved the company and knew the company should be in the personal
> computer market before it slipped away from Big Blue's reach, and they
> compromised many things in order to bring out a product very quickly to the
> marketplace.  It was not pretty, it had significant shortcomings, but it
> grew into an industry and won over all of the more compelling designs in
> the Marketplace.  Those engineers knew something it has taken years for me
> to understand.  You can improve a crappy design using sales and revisions
> that drive sales, but you can't survive if your engineering masterpiece
> misses the market opportunity.
>
> The goal of the engineer, thus: make as few compromises as necessary in
> order to get into the market; sell enough product to allow a re-engineering
> effort to remove the compromises.
>
> Jim
>
>
> --
> Jim Brainbrain@jbrain.com www.jbrain.com
>
>