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Show j TTBte ' HBrasIiness mipnmter ST" You can say goodbye to the myth about IBM software compatibility Once upon a not-so-long-ago time, the myth of a national small computer standard swept the land. It was the myth of IBM compatibility, and folks believed it for a year or , two. The fairy tale's premise was this: Anyone who buys any computer that comes with the magic ingredient MS DOS, can magically run every one of those golden programs being churned churn-ed out for the IBM PC. MS DOS is an operating system used on microcomputers, a middleman middle-man that translates commands from ' computer programs so they can be used by a computer's brains (CPU, in jargon), memory (RAM), and permanent files (disk storage). In the days when MS DOS was primitive, and programs were equally primitive, primi-tive, any idiot could design an "IBM compatible," a computer that could run most IBM PC programs reasonably well (although not always error-free). But like many fairy tales, this one is making a lot of IBM compatible makers and users wake up screaming. scream-ing. IBM itself is causing some of those nightmares. First, IBM played rough by suing several compatible makers who thought that, like little David, they could walk unnoticed past Goliathan IBM and steal unpunished the copyrighted programs-on-a-chip (ROM) that make IBM PCs work the way they do. Since such copying is comparable to stealing a copyrighted computer program, IBM won its lawsuits. So, to stay in business, the little dreamers had to jump into expensive crash programs to create from scratch their own substitute programs-on-a-chip. Second, IBM deliberately booby-trapped booby-trapped its operating system after the compatibles started appearing. The earliest versions of both PC DOS and MS DOS were so much alike that Columbias, Coronas, Compaqs, Columbias, Coronas, Compaqs, Eagles, Ea-gles, and dozens c! other compatibles compati-bles got off to a promising start. But then Microsoft, the maker of magical MS DOS, issued an improved version, MS DOS 2.0, and IBM made some different changes for its own PC DOS 2.0. IBM's later PC DOS 2.10 was even more different from MS DOS 2.11, and both companies' latest 3.0s were , very different. Nowadays few programmers can write programs able to toe-dance across from one operating system to the other. In short, it's led to sudden death for "IBM compatibility." Despite the ad claims, you can just about forget about reasonable compatibility from the new Coronas, Columbias, Tandys or other so-called IBM compatibles. The old myth of IBM compatiblity won't die easily. Some publishers and some makers of so-called compatibles now try to measure how compatible each brand is. But saying a computer is 75 percent IBM-compatible makes as much sense as saying an Oldsmobile is 75 percent diesel-compatible. This doesn't mean you have to quit buying the so-called compatibles. But buy them for what they are, not what they claim to have sneaked past IBM . Years ago we decided to buy an Eagle 1630 for our own office because it was unquestionably superior to the IBM XT. (Its performance is only now matched by machines introduced late in 1984). In order to enjoy our Eagle, we had to accept the fact that a lot of IBM PC programs would not run on it. And to test new programs for this column, we also had to install a genuine IBM. There is one point of compatibility left in the compatibles, and that's an important one to some buyers. The files written on PC DOS computers generally can be read by non-IBM machines and vice versa. Forget even this asset if you create a file with MS or PC DOS versions 2 or 3 and try to read it on a version 1 i operating system. Even PC DOS 2.10 files are incompatible with IBM's own 1.10! After months of testing new programs and so-called IBM looka-likes, looka-likes, we must warn all our readers not to fall for compatibility promises any longer. Now that IBM's cutting prices and retailers are discounting IBM PCs and XTs, compatible, makers are losing much of their price advantage anyway. If you find a computer that you like, and it's not made by IBM, then plan on buying only software that is labeled for use on that machine. Buy Zenith's Z-150 "compatible," for instance, only if you're willing to limit yourself to programs specifically specifi-cally labeled to run on Zenith. (Most "compatible" makers publish listings list-ings of programs they've tested to work on their machines. If your dealer doesn't have one, write to the company.) Otherwise, if you want to run IBM programs, better buy an1 IBM. |