I have been a "hobbiest" computer user since the mid 80s and I remember how it was back then. There was an ecosystem of different manufacturers, each with strengths and weaknesses.
Yup. They were the games console factions of the day. Particularly the Spectrum and Commodore fanboys.
I used to run a BBC model B and then I moved on to an Archimedes A5000.
My mate had an Archimedes. Nice bit of kit and one of the early 32 bit operating systems. Most remembered for playing that Virus game.
I watched Microsoft arrive in that ecosystem like a plague and decimate the scene.
See, I saw them give people what they wanted: The use of one heterogenous operating system so you didn't have to learn the variances of a dozen or so. This bought computing to the masses and out of the realm of, well,
hobbyists.
They didn't do it with superior technology. They did it by leveraging their relationship with IBM to attempt to stifle and strangle all competition.
Yup, and if they didn't someone else would have. They were in the right place at the right time and were smart enough to leverage the opportunity.
They did it with obscene, monopolistic business practices that have been retroactively shown to have been illegal although, by the time that this has been proved it's generally too late for their victims.
Yup. Welcome to the history of economics, littered with the corpses of good devices whose inventors didn't understand market needs and how to manipulate that market. Betamax how we miss thee!
They nearly succeeded, too.
They did succeed. That's why they have over 90% of the entire market.
By the time that I needed to replace my A5000, the only options that were realistically left was to buy Windows or to buy an Apple.
So you bought an Apple. Good for you, move on.
All the other options had been smashed by Redmond. Superior technologies had been bought and buried or they'd been broken by the Beast of Redmond using economic warfare.
Yup. That's life I'm afraid. Happens in every industry.
Throughout the last twenty years, I have watched as Microsoft shipped nothing but shoddy, second-rate products and actively held back progress in worldwide computer technology in order to line their corporate pockets.
Oh right. See I saw them bring computing to the masses, allow the standardisation of business computing and ultimately the net into people's homes. Sure, there may have been other ways of doing it but, frankly, who cares? Not Joe Public anyway.
Does that answer your question?
Yes, you're a hobbyist who's still crying about sand getting kicked in their face over 20 years ago.
