Posted on 08/14/2011 3:23:55 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
THE YEAR WAS 1981, the US defeat in Vietnam was already six years in the past, while many people had only hazy memories of most of the 1970s with its drugs, bellbottom pants and disco craze. Ronald Reagan was US President and it was "Morning in America" once again. And that year IBM introduced its IBM PC model 5150 on 12 August, 30 years ago today.
*************Photo at source***************
The first IBM PC wasn't much by today's standards. It had an Intel 8088 processor that ran at the blazing speed of 4.77MHz. The base memory configuration was all of 16kB expandable all the way up to 256kB, and it had two 5-1/4in, 160kB capacity floppy disk drives but no hard drive.
A keyboard and 12in monochrome monitor were included, with a colour monitor optional. The 5150 ran IBM BASIC in ROM and came with a PC-DOS boot diskette put out by a previously unknown startup software company based out of Seattle named Microsoft.
IBM priced its initial IBM PC at $1,565, and that was a relatively steep price in those days, worth about $5,000 today, give or take a few hundred dollars. In the US in 1981 that was about the cost of a decent used car.
Because the IBM PC was meant to be sold to the general public but IBM didn't have any retail stores, the company sold it through US catalogue retailer Sears & Roebuck stores.
****************************************
Subsequently IBM released follow-on models through 1986 including the PC/XT, the first with an internal hard drive; the PC/AT with an 80286 chip running at 6MHz then 8MHz; the 6MHz XT/286 with zero wait-state memory that was actually faster than the 8MHz PC/AT and (not very) Portable and Convertible models; as well as the ill-fated XT/370, AT/370, 3270 PC and 3270/AT mainframe terminal emulators, plus the unsuccessful PC Jr.
In 1983 Compaq Computer reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS, beginning the era of IBM compatible PCs with its Compaq Portable suitcase PC.
IBM attempted to keep the PC market for itself by introducing its Micro-Channel Architecture, but the buying public rejected it. Soon other vendors joined the PC hardware market, applications software like Visicalc and the Lotus 123 spreadsheet programs and the Wordperfect word processing application appeared, and the IBM PC based personal computing industry took off and never looked back.
But today, after 30 years of development and untold billions of dollars in hardware and software sales, we can remember this date. µ
Except for the funny white keys.
We has some IBM model 80 servers that when they got old the HD would freeze up. You could get them running sometimes by taking them out and hitting it with a small hammer. Some preferred to slam it on a wooden desk. Usually we did this to save the data before changing the drive. Sometimes they were never replaced and worked a year or more longer.
A classic. ;)
Our first computer was a Columbia ‘portable’. It weighed about 50 lbs and cost $5,000. We drove a $500 VW bug at the time. I used to ask ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’.
I bought one of these as my second computer (an Atari 800 was the first). My family thought I was crazy to spend that kind of money for something so useless as a "personal computer".
I taught myself programming on it, and it led to a career as a software developer. All in all, a good investment.
My first ran CP/M and had a 5 meg (unbelievably large) HD that cost $3200. (Just the hard drive.)
We had the dual floppy version of Lotus 1-2-3 at the phone company back in 1983. The boss made us check the ledger math by hand to make sure the computer was doing it right.
I bought one. Upgraded to 256K which was good enough to run Lotus 123 on a RAM Disk and later added a hard drive. Lotus 123 was lightning fast. This was a time when applications were optimized for size and speed.
I would respectfully disagree. I used to service
typewriters and the Olivetti keyboards
starting with the Praxis were adjustable. With a little
tuning the keys were like having a Timney target trigger
for each letter. Unfortunately the rest of the machine was
way too much like their cousin, the Fiat automobile.
Ok, what's the deal with the big steering wheel on that thing? Do you drive it somewhere?
I remember core memory and bubble logic.
them was da dayz..
My first computer was a Tandy, not a TRS80, it was after that, I don’t remember the model #. It had the keyboard and processor as one unit and had an 8088 processor with a Turbo button that would allow you to run at 7 MHZ, wow, what a screamer. It had 16 colors as opposed to the PCs 4 colors and had a built in sound card with volume control on the keyboard. It also had one of the new 3.5 floppys AND a 5.25 also. I learned how to program on it and eventually I got a job teaching networking to people, both Novel and MS. I remember my first big hard drive, it came on my brand new 386, 25 MHZ screamer, and was 80 MB. I remember thinking I would never run out of disk space.
“IBM always made the best keyboards — computer or typewriter. The click was as perfect a typing tool as ever invented.”
I am using one right now. I go to used computer stores and buy them out whenever I find them; about $5-10 each on average. I HATE those corporate cubicle QuietKey keyboards. They have no feel to them. No soul.
I agree. Imo, the single best keyboard ever made was the one on the IBM 3279 mainframe terminal.
The image is actually the control console of a submarine that somebody photoshopped into looking like an old computer for a competition a few years ago.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.