====================================== OS/2 AND ALL THAT ====================================== EARLY IN 1987 BIG BLUE - THE IBM CORPORATION - launched the new PS/2 family of Personal Computers along with a new Operating System, Microsoft's OS/2. No longer would they produce the IBM PC-AT using the fast 80386 chip. The Giant IBM Corporation have dominated the PC market since their introduction of the original PC way back in 1983 but some interesting developments have occurred this Autumn that could prove a serious challenge to that domination. One of the features of OS/2 is a new Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) designed to make use of the 80386's strengths in a much more dynamic way than the existing PC AT ever could do. MCA is the only true PC 32 bit bus available at present and is not compatible with existing PC AT's. Hardware prices are being kept buoyant by a current shortage of RAM chips and suppliers predict that they will be unable to meet demand for at least an 18-24 month period. This may all seem a far cry for PCW users of 1988, but is it? The PCW user of the 1980's will almost certainly be a Computer user in the 1990's. The changes that are taking place now will have an impact as to how we will be computing in the 1990's - Certainly a lot more powerfully than we are now accustomed! One of the differences between CP/M, for example, and OS/2, is that the latter supports true Multi Tasking operations: Have your modem busy receiving and transmitting data while you use your other applications programs, at the same time. For example, this could mean that you could be using one program yourself - say your favourite word processor - while concurrently your spreadsheet does some number crunching on one hand and your word processor and database conduct a complex mail merge operation on the other...All at the same time and on the same micro. Gone will be the days when you need to remember complicated syntax to execute basic Operating System commands: You'll use system shells to insulate you from these complexities. An easily mastered pictorial environment suitable for the masses to execute many varied Disk Operating System (DOS) commands. Yes, the PCW with it's Z80 microprocessor will still be around serving a basic need but as computer standardisation becomes even more widespread it will dominate more than ever. Nineteen eighty-eight will go down in history as the year the 'home market' first became part of this de facto PC standard with the Sinclair PC200. This basic unit, complete with TV Modulator and a 3" drive, costs just #299 and is poised to plunge the domestic user of the late 1980's into the PC Computing arena. Get set to witness PC Software prices plunge! Now in Autumn 1988 the new Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) standard for the 1990's has been challenged by an alliance of PC Compatible manufactures - IBM's first real challenge to their ability to impose a new world wide standard on a new generation of machines. Coming right 'out of the blue' Extended Industry Standard Architecture or EISA for short, has been proposed by AST, Compaq, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Olivetti, Tandy, WYSE and Zenith. It was quickly supported by many other manufacturers of both hardware and software. A major advantage of the proposed new EISA standard is to give users the benefits of MCA without making their existing PC AT's redundant. This will also mean that existing software, peripherals and upgrade cards will run of this basic equipment but make use of the full potential of the 80386 chip. The Intel 80386 is a fast, powerful microprocessor chip which is a direct enhancement of the 8086 as used in Amstrad PC1512's and 1640's. An 80386 is a 32 bit microprocessor capable of transferring four bytes of data at a time - that's four times as much as our humble Z80 - and carries out operations on four bytes at a time. No longer is the PC chained to the 640K RAM limitation either. Another advantage of using this 32 bit chip is that it can address many megabytes of memory. But as yet, very few, if any, programs make use of the full potential of the 80386 processor. When programmers release their new breed of applications that can use these megabytes of RAM we will see just what the 80386 is really capable of. While IBM's MCA is available now the EISA challenge will not be available until the end of the decade, many manufacturers are backing both MCA and EISA. Whatever the outcome of this battle for supremacy IBM's MCA will not become the new de facto standard. The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) will bring with it healthy competition which should help to keep prices competitive and enable manufacturers to continue price cutting well into the 1990's. No longer will clone manufacturers be tied to the IBM standard to get the full power from the 80386 chip either. They will now be able to take advantage of the more open, and less costly, EISA standard without forcing existing PC AT customers to upgrade their equipment and software to keep pace with the advances in computing technology of the late 1980's.