Clones from Compaq, Tandy, Commodore, Victor, Zenith....

IBM PC
- BIOS (ROM chip) is the core
- IBM owns the BIOS code
- using it requires IBM's permission

Compaq Computer
- 1982 founded by <?Rod Canion, Jim Harris, Bill Murto of TI?>
- reverse engineer BIOS
- hire people with no knowledge of BIOS
- put them in a "clean room" (no access to BIOS code)
- create a new BIOS that replicated IBM BIOS functions
- it's legal and expensive, but
- it worked!
- produce Compaq Portable I
- fully compatible with IBM PC

These notes are taken primarily from (1) and (2). Need specific citations.

Phoenix Technologies
- 1979 founded (3)
- also reverse engineers the IBM BIOS
- offered a BIOS ROM chip for sale

Clone compatibility test
- developed by the trade press
- Lotus 1-2-3
- Bruce Artwick's Flight Simulator

Notes

1. Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Basic Books, 1996).

2. Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

3. "The Vision," http://www.phoenix.com/en/about+phoenix/default.htm (Phoenix Technologies, accessed 2004 Nov 26).

Bibliography

"Welcome to the Obsolete Technology Website," http://oldcomputers.net/index.html (oldcomputers.net, accessed 2004 Nov 26). These pages have a timeline from 1971-1989 and information on several dozen personal computers from that period.