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Computer question

nw843x

Scholar
nw843x
Joined
Jan 17, 2007
Messages
114
Why do modern PC's not have the OS stored on the motherboard anymore?
I mean other than Microshaft wanting to sell more bloatware .....
 
1) Complexity
2) Maintainability
3) Choice

In short it's just a better solution not to have a fully fledged OS on the motherboard.
 
Sure PCs come with a system, that goes both ways, built into the mobo.

BI OS.

:D
 
Because that would mean I'd have to buy a motherboard to run XP, another to run XP service pack 1, another to run 2000, another NT, another to run OS X, another 20 to run the various incarnations of linux....
 
nw843x said:
Why do modern PC's not have the OS stored on the motherboard anymore?
Click to expand...

When did they ever?

I assume you're referring to IBM PC-class machines here. They never had the OS stored on the motherboard. Are you thinking of the BIOS?

Originally BIOS stood for "Basic Input / Output System" but some time ago some people began saying it meant either "Built-In Operating System" or "Basic Integrated Operating System", both decided misnomers.
 
They had BASIC in their ROMs.

I consider programming languages to be OSes for the hardcore.
 
Yes. The PC was a great leap backward and we have pretty much kept going that way ever since.

*Thinks. Does this require and "irony" smiley? Let us see..*
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Yes they did. Google is your friend. ;)
Click to expand...

OK, IBM Cassette BASIC. I stand corrected.

I wouldn't call it an operating system though! It's what was used if there was no floppy drive connected (and they didn't have hard drives in them back then).

From wikipedia:

IBM Cassette BASIC was a version of the Microsoft BASIC programming language licensed by IBM for the IBM PC. It was included in the BIOS ROM of the original IBM PC. Cassette BASIC provided the default user interface if there was no floppy disk drive installed, or if the boot code did not find a bootable floppy disk at power on. The name Cassette BASIC came from its use of cassette tapes rather than floppy disks to store programs and data.
Click to expand...
 
It's what was used if there was no floppy drive connected (and they didn't have hard drives in them back then).
Click to expand...

I should certainly know this - I had an original IBM PC that slowly died until the BASIC interpreter was all it had.
 
cyborg said:
I should certainly know this - I had an original IBM PC that slowly died until the BASIC interpreter was all it had.
Click to expand...

I should have known this! In fact, I think I did, but I had forgotten. :blush:

I was a computer programmer back then, but I never had the original PC, my first IBM-ish machine was the XT. Before that it was a couple of Z80 CPM-80 machines, and before that, well, that's ancient history... :)

I had an XT manual from IBM, which contained the source listing for the BIOS, in assembly language of course. Don't have it any more though. I really can't recall if it contained a BASIC interpreter or not.


eta: I still have my Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit for Windows version 1 !
 
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In addition to the very limited tape-based Basic OS that the original PC's had, Tandy released a series of XT level machines that had DOS in ROM. Of course, being Tandy, it was 2.1 at a time when everybody else was selling 3.3, and they never came up with an upgrade, but it could have been done. At some point one of my kids found a pile of these in the trash, and I still have one or two. They booted nearly instantaneously, and of course the OS is immune to corruption, disk failure, virus attack, etc.

I suppose you could put a good part of Windows on a chip, but it would have to be a huge chip, and it would then be very difficult to do updates and security fixes, and of course Windows is so mutable, with programs writing files and sticking DLL's all over the place, that a good part of it would still have to be in an area that can be easily rewritten, unlike Dos, which was never touched by the programs that ran under it.
 
bruto said:
In addition to the very limited tape-based Basic OS that the original PC's had, Tandy released a series of XT level machines that had DOS in ROM. Of course, being Tandy, it was 2.1 at a time when everybody else was selling 3.3, and they never came up with an upgrade, but it could have been done. At some point one of my kids found a pile of these in the trash, and I still have one or two. They booted nearly instantaneously, and of course the OS is immune to corruption, disk failure, virus attack, etc.

I suppose you could put a good part of Windows on a chip, but it would have to be a huge chip, and it would then be very difficult to do updates and security fixes, and of course Windows is so mutable, with programs writing files and sticking DLL's all over the place, that a good part of it would still have to be in an area that can be easily rewritten, unlike Dos, which was never touched by the programs that ran under it.
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e.t.a: I'd call the original PC Basic an operating system, primitive as it was. You could create, run, print, save and load programs using just that and a cassette deck.
 
[aside]
HP, at least, produce Thin Clients that have Windows on a chip. A severely munged and chopped version of XP, but still...it's Windows!
[/aside]

The original IBM PCs did have a tiny BASIC built into the BIOS. It did sweet FA that was actually useful, as far as I recall, but that was LONG ago now. Frankly, I used it as a crude diagnostic tool. If you had a running floppy disk attached, but booting fell through to BIOS BASIC, you dun got the floppy cables wrong or busted!
 
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Zep said:
Frankly, I used it as a crude diagnostic tool. If you had a running floppy disk attached, but booting fell through to BIOS BASIC, you dun got the floppy cables wrong or busted!
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Me too. However, I was working with cheap clones that didn't have the BIOS BASIC included, and they would respond NO ROM BASIC. This is apropos of nothing, but has suddenly swept me back to sitting on the floor in my digs at university with the component parts of a PC around me. Aah, memories.
 
I had a Radio Shack Colour Computer II that had Microsoft Basic in rom. I remember that it had an empty socket for an extended basic rom and another to add another 8k of ram bringing it to 16k. I did both upgrades. :)

You could also buy an assembler for whatever chip (6809 or 6805 I can't remember) it used, on a rom pack.
 
jimlintott said:
I had a Radio Shack Colour Computer II that had Microsoft Basic in rom. I remember that it had an empty socket for an extended basic rom and another to add another 8k of ram bringing it to 16k. I did both upgrades. :)

You could also buy an assembler for whatever chip (6809 or 6805 I can't remember) it used, on a rom pack.
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Ah yes, the Coco. That was my first computer. I got the 16K extended Basic Coco I, and it was really a pretty neat machine except for the chiclet keyboard. Though lacking double-precision variables, it was an amazingly powerful version of MS Basic, and programs from it were easily translated into IBM or GW Basic except for the graphics. It had Apple and Commodore beat on that score. The joystick interface was better than any I've seen on a PC. It also loaded from tape much much faster than a C64 could load from a floppy. I later upgraded mine to the full 64K memory, and was able to run a pretty useful word processor called Telewriter 64, as well as a really nicely constructed version of Zaxxon. Children's Television Workshop also put out some very clever and well implemented games, including a couple that required the two players to cooperate with joysticks to win together, and one whose name I forget that required you to balance various environmental factors to grow and harvest a garden on an imaginary planet.

I think there's still a little cult of CoCo users out there, running tricked-out enhanced machines with multiple disks, and so forth.

It was a 6809, by the way. I got the assembler/disassembler cartridge, but ended up never really getting into assembly language when other things in life intervened.

I should dig it up again and just run the Chess or Roman checkers cartridge in it from time to time for old times' sake.
 
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