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Buses like the S100 have a problem: plug-and-play is next to impossible with them. When you plug a memory board, you have to set the switches to its address and the same happens with I/O and storage - everything must be configured more or less by hand. The S-100 is, more or less, the naked processor bus.

The ISA bus is a lot like S-100 - it was possible to buy a PC on a card and plug it into a PC backplane along your other cards.

But I agree. The 5150 was an abomination.



DEC did well with the Q-22 bus on their PDP's, MicroVax I and II products. Motorola did well with the VME bus as well.

Address collisions on the backplane were part of the process.

But you're right. It's not cool anymore to ask grandma to set switches right out of the box.


By the mid 70's, it was perfectly OK to ask a computer-using grandma to set switches ;-)




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