isting MS-DOS software base. It also provided a platform for the next generation of software operating under OS/2.In 1987 IBM released its PS/2 line of personal computers. To a large extent these differed quite a bit from the PC/XT/AT line of machines that preceded them.The Personal System/2 computers sported 3 - inch micro floppy drives, onboard graphics support and a modular assembly design. With the exception of the low-end Model 30, these machines boasted a new hardware bus called the Micro Channel, which, while not compatible with the older AT bus, offered instead high-speed data and I/O transfers, sharing resources and multi-processing support.The Model 80 was the first IBM machine to make use of the 16MHz Intel 80386 32-bit microprocessor. This remained IBM's high-end machine until the 25 MHz Model 70 was introduced in 1988.In addition to design differences from the PC/XT/AT line, IBM had decided to reduce some of the openness that had been associated with that line as well. For example, the ROM BIOS listing was not published, only the entry points were made available. As well, IBM, while documenting the electrical signals to the Micro Channel bus, patented the design. The next chapter in this story brings back one of the pioneers in the field, Steve Jobs, formerly of Apple Computer. Jobs had been ousted as Chairman of Apple in 1985 as a result of a power struggle with his hand-picked choice for president, John Sculley, formerly of Pepsi. Upon his departure he took with him some of the best talent at Apple and set up a new company called NeXT, Inc.After three years of work, seven million dollars of his own money and 20 million dollars in backing from H. Ross Perot, Jobs unveiled with great fanfare on October 12, 1988, the fruit of his labors, 'the cube.'Received with mixed reviews by the industry, the machine was nonetheless certainly of technological significance. Termed 'the machine for the nineties' by Jobs, the stark, matte-b...
