The Birth of the Machine That Changed the World http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20060812-computer-ibm-microsoft-pc-apple-altair-intel.shtml
Twenty-five years ago today the nation’s largest computer company introduced to the world its smallest computer ever, the IBM Personal Computer. The rollout of the PC was perhaps the most momentous product introduction of the past half century. But was it a phenomenal market coup or a serious business blunder? A shot of adrenaline for the personal computer industry or a technical hodgepodge that would leave a generation of computer users tearing out their hair? Or was it all of the above? It was a marketing coup, no doubt about it. In the late 1970s microcomputers, as they were called, remained a marginal product. A number of companies offered hobbyists kits that let anyone handy with a soldering iron build a computer. The MITS Altair 8800 was an example. Others soon began to sell preassembled computers, like the Apple II and the Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1977. Both could store programs on audiocassette tapes or later on 5-inch floppy disks. Initially only electronics buffs were excited by the machines. But with the advent of word-processing software and spreadsheet programs like VisiCalc, business managers began to consider ways personal computers could increase productivity. IBM had tested the waters for small computers as early as 1975 with its model 5100 “intelligent programmable terminal.” But starting at a hefty $9,000, the product attracted little attention. In 1980 the company’s managers, fearful of being left behind as the small-computer train left the station, initiated a crash program to bring a micro to market—and fast. Twelve IBM engineers convened in Boca Raton, Florida, under the leadership of William C. Lowe, to design the new product. The team made decisions that went against the Big Blue grain. They assembled the new computer from off-the-shelf parts, building it around the Intel 8088 processor. They decided on what was called “open architecture,” revealing all the machine’s specifications in a 362-page manual for public use. This revolutionary step encouraged the inventors of application software and peripheral hardware to design their products to work with the PC, expanding its versatility. It also planted the seed of problems that would soon become obvious. On the morning of August 12, 1981, IBM announced the new product, the “Personal Computer,” or PC (in typical IBM fashion it was also designated the 5150). The company offered it for a base price of $1,565. That bought 64 kilobytes of memory and expansion slots for up to 640 Kb more. Almost everything else was extra. A system with two floppies and a serial port went for $3,045. A monitor that displayed letters and numbers in Martian green cost $345. The machines ran at a speed of 4.77 megahertz. IBM took the unprecedented step of selling the computers through retail outlets, at Sears, Roebuck and ComputerLand, which had begun in 1976. The versatile, upgradeable machine far exceeded the company’s expectations. Having forecast sales of 250,000 PCs in the first five years, IBM actually sold 3 million. “The company couldn't keep up with the demand,” remembers Dave Bradley, a member of the development team. Before long the neat, putty-colored boxes were appearing on desks in businesses around the country. In 1982 Time named the personal computer Man of the Year. By 1985 IBM held 40 percent of the market. But the small-computer market was not the gentlemanly, service-oriented environment that IBM was used to. The PC’s open architecture allowed upstarts to create imitations, or “clones.” Small, limber companies jumped into the game and began to steal business from the corporate giant. First Compaq and Kaypro and later Gateway and Dell touted their machines as “IBM-compatible.” For a while IBM kept pace, but failures like the PCjr. and the PS/2 system proved that the company was out of its element. Critics attributed IBM’s problems during the early 1990s in part to its straying from its core business, a tendency that began with the PC. The introduction of the PC certainly invigorated the personal computer business. The machine created a standard for the industry and came with a credibility that benefited every small-computer maker. Software writers could depend on a large market for any useful program, since any IBM-compatible machine could run the same set of instructions. The availability of software and peripherals in turn spurred sales of small computers. In its hasty development process, IBM had purchased an operating system for the PC—the programmed instructions at the core of the machine—from a small company called Microsoft. That firm’s head, Bill Gates, had in turn obtained the system from Seattle Computer Products. A technician named Tim Paterson had, in six weeks, created the original version, which he called QDOS for “quick and dirty operating system.” What became known at MS-DOS remained at the heart of every IBM and IBM-compatible personal computer for the next 20 years. The ever more complex versions of Microsoft’s popular Windows software that followed operated on a foundation of DOS (not until Microsoft released Windows XP in 2001 was the software freed of this rickety underpinning). The result was a tendency to malfunction, and PC users became frustratingly familiar with computer crashes. IBM too found a great deal of frustration in small computers, despite its initial success. In late 2004 the company announced that it was leaving the personal computer business for good. Rights to the products were sold to a Chinese firm, the Lenovo Group, and the PC bloodline came to an end. How does the IBM PC stack up against today’s entry-level personal computers? Now, instead of the original 64 thousand bytes of memory, you get 256 million. Instead of a speed of 4.77 megahertz, your computer runs at 2.53 gigahertz (530 times as fast). Instead of shelling out $1,565 (about $4,000 in today’s dollars) you can pay a base price of just $299. And that includes a monitor. Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
