Lowe argued for an open design, thinking third party products such as hardware add-ons and software would create a larger market, licensing opportunities, and dominance of the market, would outweigh a closed design and high licensing fees IBM was known for. He was right.
What he didn’t count on was losing a lawsuit about the ability to black box the BIOS that would allow other companies to clone the PC.
Black boxing was the process in which there were two teams; one would discover the capabilities of the BIOS and another would build a new BIOS completely from generic technical requirements the first team wrote. The second team would never lay eyes on or touch a real BIOS.
In other words, the second team would create a new BIOS using a list of features the first team discovered but never directly copying from the IBM BIOS.
IBM thought for sure they’d win that lawsuit, but they didn’t. That lawsuit opened the doors for all kinds of intellectual property theft. One good thing is that it did lead to further patent laws protecting software. Patent laws are not perfect yet but it helped.
Yes, and if those laws were on the books in the 1970’s and 80’s Gates, Baller, Jobs and Wozniak would still be in prison. What a wonderful world we would have now if those thieving pricks had been locked up, right?
You're right though, the Phoenix BIOS was what made clones very possible. And it was constructed just as you stated.