
'Silicon cowboys': The underdog story of personal computing (2016) [audio] - jqcoffey
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-01/silicon-cowboys-underdog-story-personal-computing
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benj111
This misses the main point for me. The 'openness' is what allowed the pc to
succeed. If it had stayed IBMs platform it may well have dominated business
for sometime, but something would have popped up to take its place. The 80s
and 90s are littered with superior platforms that never got enough traction
because the pc was everywhere.

I wonder when the same thing will happen to social networks.

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hermitdev
Your comment resonates with me - it wasn't IBM that made the PC special, it
was the lower cost alternative clones that made it accessible. Something that
Apple shunned at the time and nearly became their death nail had it not been
the investment by MS in the mid-90s.

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ForHackernews
> their death nail

Just FYI, the phrase is "death knell":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_knell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_knell)

This is a common 'eggcorn'
([https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/1130/nail/](https://eggcorns.lascribe.net/english/1130/nail/))
because 'knell' is an old-fashioned word virtually unused outside of this one
idiomatic phrase.

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hermitdev
Knew I was getting it wrong...

