Classic Computers Emulated Part 4: The Rise of The Generic Clones

May 25, 2021

IBM Loses Control!

Microsoft Works, a integrated software program that included a spreadsheet, word-processor, and database.

Clones of the IBM PC have exist since the early days of the standards. Machines like the Compaq Portable, Tandy 1000, Olivetti M24/AT&T PC6300, etc. The thing about these machines though was that they were brand-name clones. Something that wasn't considered generic. However, with the proliferation of clones, it was only a matter of time before generic PC's started to flood the market. Prices would fall to the price-point that by the end of the decade, most new computers being purchased for the home setting were IBM Compatible PC's.

Phoenix Technologies, Leading Edge And The Various Chip Makers

A chip maker, Phoenix technologies saw a market. Earlier clone makers just cloned the IBM BIOS directly using the documentation of the firmware, which was IBM's intellectual property. These companies were nuked by IBM's legal department. Other companies, like Compaq, wrote their own BIOS from scratch that was free from IBM code. Compaq then used the BIOS in their own computers. Phoenix Technologies, like Compaq, decided to clone the BIOS using the legal, clean room reverse-engineering process to write their own BIOS. After that though, Phoenix decided to license their BIOS out to any party that wanted to build their own clone systems. From their, a flood of companies started to make their own XT-Compatible motherboard and decided to use the Phoenix BIOS to give then that IBM compatibility. The price of these compatible machines rapidly fell from all the competition.

The first company that signed up to use the Phoenix BIOS was Leading Edge Hardware. Based in Canton, Massachusetts and made by Daewoo in South Korea, these machines became a massive success in the marketplace. The Model D, which was the flagship model, was introduced in July, 1985. 100,000 machines were made and sold in their first year of production. It originally had a price of $1,400, though it was quickly reduced by $200. Despite it's expensive price tag, it made rapid inroads into the home market, along with the Tandy 1000.

Soon, other companies started to make their own BIOS's to compete with Phoenix Technologies. Along the companies included Award Software and American Megatrends. The extra competition caused the price of XT clones to fall, and allowed these computers to take over the home market as the 8-bit machines like the C64 were being retired.

PCEM emulates these generic XT clones without issues, along with their various options, which included the wide selection of various video adapters like CGA (Color Graphics Adapter), the high-res Hercules adapter, and EGA (Enhanced Color adapter). Their were various RAM options for these machines as well. Most boards could only accommodate up to 640KB of RAM though. This was a combination of the memory limit that the 8088/8086 could address and how IBM segmented the memory map of their system. Various processors were supported as well. The stock Intel 8088 running at 4.77MHz could be upgraded with faster variants that could operate at 7.16 and 10MHz, respectively. Also, processor makers made their own clone CPU's of the Intel processors as well. AMD had their versions of both the Intel 8088 and 8086.

Originally, when IBM signed their deal with Intel to use their processors in the IBM PC, to prevent a chip shortage, Big Blue stipulated Intel into licensing their technology to AMD. This was done so AMD would make fallback processors in case Intel couldn't keep up with production. The Japanese chip maker NEC also got into the market by making the V20 and V30 processors. Takes on the Intel 8088 and 8086, these processors were very popular among the performance hungry for their high clock speeds.

The low-end systems shipped with CGA graphics and no hard-disk. CGA was the lowest common denominator for graphics at this point. It was the bare minimum for an home PC. Virtually all of these machines shipped with MS-DOS. In 1985/1986, hard-disk were still a very expensive proposition, but they were much more affordable by the end of the decade. By that point, systems preloaded hard-disk drives outsold systems without them.

As people were moving away from the 8-bit computers (one could only use a C64 for so long), the IBM Compatibles became much more appealing. They could still run all the popular games (even though they weren't as good as the consoles or C64 ports), along with the important business applications as well, like Lotus 123 and WordPerfect. Higher prices systems usually shipped with the EGA or Hercules video adapter. Hercules allowed the computer to high-res, monochrome, bit-mapped graphics, similar to the display on the original Macintosh. EGA was the higher-res, color successor to CGA. Capable of 640 by 350, 16 colors, EGA was much more appealing for business-graphics than CGA was.

Game developers coded for the EGA standard as well, even though the adapter was designed for the business market. As "crap" as CGA was, because of its low price, it had the highest market penetration, and as such, was widely supported by game developers even by the tail-end of the decade. Luckily, Tandy Graphics still provided the C64 equivalent graphics on the IBM compatibles (if you had a Tandy 1000 though).

The proliferation of the clones demonstrated how IBM was losing control of the market that it created. Big Blue faced a lot more competition by this point. As a Fortune 500 company or small business that was looking to save money, it made much more sense to buy one of the clones that were much cheaper in price, and yet still use all the same software and hardware that could run on the IBM PC/XT. Computers made by Leading Edge, PC's Limited (Dell), Packard Bell, Tandy, VTech, etc. Their was foreign competition as well. Many of the components used in the assembly of the compatibles were assembled in Taiwan and South Korea.

Soon, companies in these countries started to make their own low-cost clones as well that were exported here in the U.S. They provided direct competition to the American-assembled machines. IBM threatened to sue ERSO, a Taiwanese computer company that was exporting a lot of these clones, for patent infringement. Because ERSO legally reserved-engineered the BIOS using the clean-room method, IBM didn't have a case. The lawsuit was dropped, and ERSO continued exporting their computers.

For corporations that were standardizing on the standards that IBM created and now supported by the clone makers, Apple was out of the question. Apple, as the only company that made the Macintosh, was being left behind in the flood of clones. After Steve Jobs was ousted, Jean-Louis Gassee, director of Apple's European Division, was put in charge of the Macintosh Division by Apple's new CEO, John Sculley. He preferred high profit margins over market-share.

The Macintosh would be happy and content as a niche product geared towards desktop publishers and graphics designers. Their would be no affordable Mac's to compete with the clones. With rapidly falling prices, the XT cones were taking over all the various computer markets. Corporate, Home, and Education. This is the point where the compatibles become mainstream.

The Leading Edge Word Processor that shipped with the Model D computers.

Harvard Graphics, a presentation program that displayed charts and graphics. This is one of the examples of "business graphics".

PFS:Professional Write, another word processor for MS-DOS.

Lotus 123 using the Hercules Graphics Adapter.

Ventura Publisher, a desktop publishing application for MS-DOS. Using the GEM environment, it demonstrated the capabilities of desktop publishing using Hercules Graphics.