Semi-OT: Interesting or unusual PC Compatibles?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 1 Jul 2007 at 14:37, Jim Leonard wrote:

> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > I should hastily add that the Compaq story does seem to smack a bit 
> > of "urban legend", so there may be other takes on it.  But that's 
> > what I heard at the time...
> 
> It's been confirmed several times, actually, including Robert X. 
> Cringley's documentary Triumph of the Nerds.

Well, that may be, but I've heard an alternate version from a ex-
Compaq employee that says that it's only partially accurate.  
According to this fellow, the first team (the "dirty" group) never 
looked at the source code for the BIOS, but wrote their spec by 
"black boxing" BIOS functions.  That would be considerably harder to 
do, I'd think.

Cheers,
Chuck