kaled - 12:56 am on Oct 16, 2008 (gmt 0)

The idea that a US company would hold back software development due to export controls when their biggest market is domestic and probably the next few largest markets are not on the list of proscribed countries either is just plain absurd (the UK and the rest of Europe, Canada and Australia).

If Microsoft ever made such an excuse it was BS pure and simple.

So it's easy to figure out why 32-bit based hardware and apps were freely deployed across the world after the end of the USSR

386 computers were available in the UK in the mid eighties (as were 68020 computers). So far as I am aware, the western world suffered no shortage of 32-bit hardware at any time. As for 32bit software, plenty existed (esp for 68K CPUs since that's all they could run) but none from Microsoft.

Kaled.