[OT] "Twenty five years of the IBM PC"

hummingbird · 2006-08-12T22:47:09+00:00

This is where it all started: "Computer firm IBM made technological history on 12 August 1981 with the announcement of a personal computer - the IBM 5150. Costing $1,565, the 5150 had just 16K of memory - scarcely more than a couple of modest e-mails worth. The machine was not the first attempt to popularise computing but it soon came to define the global standard. It altered the way business was done forever and sparked a revolution in home computing. "It's hard to imagine what people used to do with computers in those days because by modern standards they really couldn't do anything," said Tom Standage, the Economist magazine's business editor told the World Service's Analysis programme. "But there were still things you could do with a computer that you couldn't do without it like spreadsheets and word processing." -Global impact- Everything from automated spreadsheets to desktop publishing and the rise of the internet have since become possible. The term PC had been in use long before IBM released its machine - but the success of the 5150 led to the use of the term to mean a machine compatible with IBM's specifications. The machine was developed by a team of 12 engineers, led by Don Estridge, who was known as the "father of the IBM PC". Development took under a year and was achieved by building a machine using "off the shelf" parts from a variety of manufacturers. The machine had an "open architecture" which meant other firms could produce compatible machines. IBM banked on being able to charge a license for using the BIOS - the software which controls the heart of the machine. But other companies reverse engineered the BIOS and were able to produce clones of the machine without having to pay IBM a penny. That open architecture sparked an explosion in PC sales and also paved the way for common standards - something business had craved. Since then the PC has come to dominate the home and the office and led the move to the online era with cheap...

Aug 12, 2006 29 Replies

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hummingbird 20 years ago

On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 20:44:45 +0100 'Tumbleweed' posted this onto uk.politics.misc:

I don't have a problem with that but you might like to consider that IBM's 'failure' to license the PC BIOS may in fact have been aided and abetted internally... bear in mind that the IBM PC was designed with an open architecture.

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Tumbleweed 20 years ago

you dont say?

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Him over there 20 years ago

Well, I can remember using an ACT Sirius in the early '80's to program in dBase 2. How old does that make me?

And the IBM PC was FAR inferior to the Sirius and the Apricot.

Not so sure about an open architecture developing though. Too many competing companies all striving to make THEIR architecture the one of choice.

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Him over there 20 years ago

See my other post. You were involved with the Apricot? Nice machine. I used a Sirius, the predecessor, for some years.

It was an excellent machine, the Sirius. I went from a twin floppy version to a machine with a HUGE 10 meg hard drive! ;-)) Dunno how it ever got filled up!

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