IN 1991 IBM, Apple and Motorola sent shock waves through the computer world by announcing a partnership to create a new generation of computer systems.
These were to be based on RISC (reduced instruction set computing) chips, a new architecture, new firmware, new software.
The triumvirate created a special group dedicated to working out the enormous problems of multimedia.
The shocks were caused by what some people saw as an incompatible alignment: IBM and Apple were supposed to be sworn enemies and competitors in the hardware market.
Motorola and IBM were competitors in the chip market.
There were many who felt that the alliance would never produce anything of value - but now we have a chance to see for ourselves, with the production of the first PowerPC CPUs.