IBM 5150 maximum memory?

[Fred Cisin]

On Fri, 25 Apr 2008, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Who was IBM's competition at the time?
CP/M, Apple ][, TRS80

> I mean, were they up against someone
> where it was necessary to get the product out the door as soon as possible, or
>   with hindsight could they have delayed launch a few months in order to get
> some of the bigger software vendors on board?

Well, they did release Visicalc and EasyWriter with it.
But the issue may have been less about a launch delay, as about having
rapid growth of ported existing software.

> (I'm not sure that CPU cost came into it - was a 68k really so much more than
> an 8088 that it would have mattered on a machine costing close on $2k?)

I think that the extra cost would be worth it, but IBM was cutting LOTS of
corners.  If the 8088 hadn't been available, I think that they would have
been more likely to go Z80 than 8086!

> I'm not sure I'd buy a 5150 ever now, unless one fell in my lap - I think I
> could be talked into handing over cash for a 5160 though.

That's OK.  By the time that I dig that stuff out, it will have become
historical artifacts.