How the IBM PC Changed the World

Sabah Arif writes "On August 12, 1981, IBM released the IBM PC 5150. In less than two years, IBM had created a computer that would not only change IBM, but the entire world, mostly because it did not follow IBM tradition. It used an outside microprocessor (instead of the nascent IBM 801), operating system and software. Low End Mac recounts the birth of the IBM PC 5150."

CPM

[Tablizer]

I don't know why it is considered so great historically. CPM machines had spreadsheets and dBASE and word-processors and were doing quite well. The IBM PC stole that market and killed CPM because of the brand name. CPM would have been the base framework of the machines we use today had it not been for the IBM PC. In fact, the PC barrowed CPM-machine hardware in many cases.

Impact

[treak007]

Looking back at the past, IBM was probably one of the most influential computer companies. Their Thinkpad notebook line was considered possibly the best notebook in existance. It's a shame that they were purchased by Lenovo, even if Lenovo continues making good Thinkpads.

the x86

[phantomfive]

On the one hand, the x86 is a terrible design. It doesn't have enough registers, and the assembly interface is awkward (especially in the FPU). On the other hand, the openness of the architecture has freed us from the shackles of dependency on a single company for hardware (which DRM would like to lay back on us). If you don't like Intel, you can go to AMD. There are tons of board manufacturers to choose from, and all the parts need to be (more or less) interoperable.

This prevents one manufacturer from imposing their wishes on us. If Microsoft had control of their personal computer platform the way apple does, we surely would have lost the battle to DRM already. Computers would be more expensive because there wouldn't be competition from cheap manufacturers in Taiwan to drive the prices down.

The x86 may be an ugly beast, but it gives us the freedom that only openness can bring. And I will drink to that.

No, Columbia Data Systems was first

[Terje Mathisen]

Just after the PC introduction (at NCC fall 1981) I told my father-in-law that we should re-implement the software used for OCR processing in his downtown office. We should select something PC-compatible since this new open architecture was bound to generate compatibles, thereby ensuring a pretty long lifetime.

After looking around the market, we bought two Columbia PCs, one desktop (with an immense, never to be filled, 10 MB hard drive) and one luggable, for the same price as a single IBM PC.

The Columbia machine came with a BIOS/HW manual that documented all the various lowlevel interfaces, including the port adresses for things like the serial port and the interrupt controller, which allowed me to write a hw interrupt driver for the incoming 9600 baud OCR data stream.

Columbia was both earlier than Compaq and more compatible, but that didn't matter, they still went under a couple of years later. The PCs lived for many years however. :-)

Terje

Re:Impact

[plover]

Looking back at the past, IBM was probably one of the most influential computer companies.

"Probably"? :-) When I was in college, Apples were 'it' for the in-school computers -- IBM hadn't developed the 'PC' yet. We still had terminals and modems for accessing the CDC mainframe, but the Apples were there, and they were all yours. No sharing, no operators, just pop in your disc and go. It was an amazing machine.

I wanted to get one for home, but my dad told me we weren't going to buy an Apple. He was waiting for the IBM home computer to come out. He said "IBM doesn't do anything half-assed. If there's a business need for it, IBM will come along and completely dominate the market. Apple will be pushed aside; they'll never make it as the mainstream computer for businesses."

I, of course, couldn't believe that for a second. Every school in the state had Apples, they were everywhere, and this IBM thing didn't even exist! How could he even think that a company with no experience in home computers would take over the market, especially since Apple was so well entrenched?

Y'know, I wish I'd listened to my dad more. He was a very, very wise man.

Last one I saw was in 1995

[marked23]

I retired a 5150 in 1995. It had a hard drive and maybe 128k. We used it every day. It was the computer we all used to store our CNC programs on. Connected to a serial port switch box running 100's of feet of cable to the CNC machines. It worked until the day we turned it off and replaced it with a contemporary Pentium. That was the last time I saw a 5150 in working order.

The turnaround of IBM

[iota]

What the IBM 5100 really represents, in retrospect, is the beginning of the turnaround for IBM in the minds of the public. It's difficult to think of another example of a company so large and so universally despised eventually becoming the (mostly) developer friendly company it is today.

By allowing their teams to skirt the system occasionally, we've seen truly open hardware (PowerPC) availablity, open source contributions, free training seminars for developers, etc. The 5100 was the first great example of the success that a little rule-breaking can bring to the company.

IMO, it was exactly that product and the example that it was to IBM internally that allowed IBM to do the one thing no one was entirely sure it would be able to do in the age of personal computers -- survive.

My hat's off to the improvements IBM has made in the last 25 years, and I hope that those lessons won't be forgotten over the next 25 years.

Re:The Next Big Thing

[Valacosa]

I wish there was a modern version of the "Turbo" button

So do I. I wonder how many FPS I'd get in Unreal Tournament 2K4 if I suddenly dropped my CPU* down to 8 MHz mid-game. My guess: 0.0037. Hey, we could start expressing Frames Per Second in scientific notation!

* Before some humourless nerd points this out, yes, I know a good chunk of the graphics in modern games is generated by a dedicated GPU. Lets pretend the turbo button affects the video card too, okay? It's a personal fantasy of mine.

OTOH, assembler, board design was easy in X86

[Flying pig]

In the late 70s/early 80s I worked with a number of 16 bit architectures - TMS9900, 8086, 68000, F101, PDP-11. The great thing about the X86 was that it was extremely easy to use for the migrating 8-bit programmer and it was easy to teach. Not so easy for me, I began on 16 bit and then in later years had to do embedded work with 8 bit processors which I hated!

In fact all the early processors had their architectural horrors. The 9900 had an absurd system in which the bit order of IO was reverse numbered with respect to the bus and we actually got an I/O board into production before we realised this owing to the poor documentation. The 68000 constantly caught out assembly programmers because of its word alignment issues, resulting in one occasion in a programmer going near berserk and having a screaming fit in the lab, fortunately when the boss was out at a meeting. And don't talk to me about the F100/L except to say that Ferranti did not get as much pain as they deserved for creating it. Not that it would ever have become mainstream...

It's easy to be clever with hindsight, but the Power architecture came later and too late. After, as I recall, the NS32032 which, despite some performance issues, was a processor I really liked.

Re:Thank Phoenix Technologies

[pimpimpim]

It's easy to see that point (4), copying the idea and standards to other hardware companies, couldn't have happened if they didn't give away all the documentation as in point (3). And, point (4) not only increased the impact of IBM on the history of PCs, but it also decreased their market share as a PC supplier enormously.

What I find interesting to speculate on, is if they would've been bigger now if they had used some sort of "trusted hardware" contract, the same as which microsoft already tries to put through for some time now: forcing suppliers to develop hardware/software only under contract, and making sure that only hardware from those suppliers will actually function on their platform (not that the hardware capacity was there to check stuff like that at the time, I guess).

Or, would they have been marginalized by the more open competition if they would've chosen that path, and their current technique to support open standards, but deliver paid service and support for companies that need reliable software/hardware, is actually the best one?

$1295

[Sithech]

Yes, I remember going downtown in SF to see the PC. For $1295 you got a machine with 16 K of memory, no graphics adapter, no floppy drives. You could hook it to a cassette recorder. Pretty much a clone of the bottom-end configuration of the Apple II, at about the same cost (no, Apples weren't significantly cheaper). What it had going for it was a keyboard that included lower-case and function keys . And the graphics modes of the color adapter were very impressive. Also it could be configured with an enormous 640 K of memory, which was more than the floppy drive held.

For the record, all the popular small systems of the time had third party add-ons. That's a tradition that goes back all the way to the Altair. The Apple II didn't even have an RF modulator, because a third-party deal saved some headaches for Apple. All the systems came with full documentation. Apple even gave you the source code for the whole ROM in a separate manual right in the box, along with the schematics. Cloning the BIOS happened long after the PC had established its place - and the first clones had significant compatibility problems. Clones really didn't take off until Compac beat IBM to market with a 386-based machine.

Altair & the Apple I

[VValdo]

Funny you should mention it. I was just reading this fascinating account [foundersatwork.com] by Steve Wozniak about how he invented the Apple I (semi-technical), and he talks a bit about the Altair.

Anyone have a "Woz" //gs?

W

Re:The article misses important details. . .

[ewhac]

According to many sources, including former Microsoft employees, the bugs IBM took out were forced to remain in Microsoft's version of the OS, MS-DOS. Microsoft took advantage of these bugs to put companies such as Digital Research, WordPerfect, Lotus and others out of business by not disclosing the bugs to its competitors.

Actually, had PC clones not emerged, Microsoft would have been relegated to the scrapheap of history as just another vendor of a BASIC interpreter. And a fairly crappy BASIC at that.

However, once the clones emerged, MS had it made. IBM was certainly not prepared to put in the engineering work to make PC-DOS run on non-IBM hardware. Microsoft, however, was willing to do that work (or at least let PC OEMs pay Microsoft to teach them how to do it themselves), and offer pack-in deals. As such, IBM PCs came bundled with PC-DOS, and every other machine came bundled with MS-DOS.

Back then, just about everyone in the engineering community knew MS-DOS was shit, and would steer anyone who would listen toward PC-DOS, or Digital Research's CP/M-86 or Concurrent CP/M. However, most end-users considered MS-DOS to be "good enough," and it was "free," and they wanted to be able to run the same software they used on the real IBM PC at work on their cheap(er) clone at home. And besides any bugs were the application's fault.

Oh, and you're also forgetting what the gold standard of PC compatibility was at the time:

Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Amazing foresight? Maybe, to some degree. But in large measure Gates fell flat on his face into a pile of amazingly good luck.

Schwab

Re:Last one I saw was in 1995

[pe1chl]

That is more likely to have been a 5160. The 5150 did not come with a harddisk. It was usually seen with two floppies, but it even had a cassette recorder interface.
The memory often was only 32 or 64K.
The 5160 (IBM PC XT) followed shortly after the 5150 and had a whopping 10MB Harddisk, 8 instead of 5 slots, no cassette interface, and some more memory by default.

Somewhere in 1983 (maybe early 84) we got one of those in the office, fully populated with memory (640K) and running XENIX.
It was used as a low-end platform for our Unix-based application that usually ran on larger systems like the NCR TOWER or a PC-like box from Fortune Systems.

Indeed, they were reliable. I think that is one of the major contributions of IBM into the Microcomputer world. Until then, there were systems from names like Commodore, Radio Shack and Apple that really were hobby systems and had lots of glitches. IBM introduced a sturdy system (although expensive) that you could put in a workshop or professional office without worrying about it breaking down all the time, or looking like a toy.

Re:the x86

[nickos]

Originally, IBM's engineers had wanted to use the much nicer Motorola 68000, but some of the business types at IBM had a deal with Intel so they went with the 8088 instead. I see no reason why things couldn't have developed differently with the 68k series being used instead of the x86 - the platform could still be open and other companies would still clone the 68k...

Re:Thank Phoenix Technologies

[clickclickdrone]

>Business people tended to view Apple computers and Commodore computers as toys.
I'm not convinced. Over here in the UK CBM Pets and Apple IIs were all over the business world. Heck, even huge multinational banks used Apple II's. I knew some poor guy who had to log credits in to an Apple II running a database by Stoneware.
Business magazines of that era were full of ads for Apple IIs and all the business software/hardware you could buy for them.
Early reviews of the PC were also very negative, most noting Apple had nothing to worry about.

Why all PC clones had two Power Supply connections

[sirwired]

Did you ever wonder why ALL XT/AT motherboards in standard form factors had two power supply connectors? Especially since they were not keyed? (swapping the two could easily blow your motherboard.) I have heard that when IBM was preparing to ship the 5150, the supplier of power supply connectors (it happened to be Molex at the time) was out of stock of the 12? pin connectors necessary to integrate the whole PS connection into one. After that, every single PC Power Supply for many years shipped with two connectors on the output, because it had always been done that way.

Probably a crazy urban geek legend, but a cute story nonetheless.

SirWired

Re:Thank Phoenix Technologies

[speculatrix]

2. The computer had the IBM label on it. These days, the IBM label does not carry the same cachet that the IBM name carried in the 1980s. At that time, IBM dominated the mindshare in the computer industry. People often said, "No one was ever fired for buying an IBM computer."

IBM's previous attempts at a home or personal/small-business were laughable. And the first PCs were pretty crap compared in features and performance - whilst the first 8088 or 8086 IBMs and compatibles struggled on with 80x25 character displays, a beeper and crude user interfaces, the Mac + Atari + Amiga people had bitmapped colour displays, digital audio and WIMP.

The only thing that made them interesting was the modularity and standard expansion slots; the rivals tended to be single-board devices which cost a lot more to expand.

It was only when the higher end 386DXs were around and bit-mapped displays that PCs even came close to rivalling the capabilities (hardware wise) of their rivals. It's a sad sad footnote in history that so much investment in time by both developers and third parties into Amiga, Atari & BeOS software has been "lost".

Economically, open always wins

[Colin Smith]

Restrictions are designed to increase the profitability of the vendor and therefore always increase the costs to customers. Inevitably at some point a more open and lower cost alternative always appears. If IBM hadn't released the specs, something else would have appeared which we'd be using now. It's economically inevitable. This is actually why Linux will ultimately replace Windows and most other operating systems.

   

Re:Thank Phoenix Technologies

[Waffle Iron]

whilst the first 8088 or 8086 IBMs and compatibles struggled on with 80x25 character displays, a beeper and crude user interfaces, the Mac + Atari + Amiga people had bitmapped colour displays, digital audio and WIMP.

For business applications, after evaluating both those early color displays and the IBM monochrome text displays, most people would have chosen the the text display. For the time it was very crisp, with a nice font and special long-persistence phosphors. Early color displays (including IBM's) were fuzzy with garish colors. The IBM monochrome monitor (along with the outstanding keyboard) was designed to match the look and feel of their well-respected mainframe terminals. The WIMP GUI software of the time was too primitive to offer an improvement over well designed character mode apps for most business software.

When the PC came out, the Mac was still years in the future, and in comparison the Apple II and its ilk had poor ergonomics for someone trying to use the machine for serious work all day long.

Why is it always IBM cpus in thge 80's???

[Nichole_knc]

Everytime I see this I have to shake my head... I had my first "desktop" in 1978. Ok it was not much.. A Radio Shack TRS-80 16K LevelII. sporting an 8088 blazing at 4mhz, a tape drive(cassettes). Heck it even had voice recognization(worked ok, bout as good as todays stuff). I still have this machine and it works just fine.... There where also many a Heathkits out there to in those days... IMO statements such as this article makes "about IBM changeing the world" will are just plain false....

Re:The great PC 'What if'

[91degrees]

The thing is, POCs weren't successful because they were clones. They were successful because they were IBM clones. Apple had their own OS. So did Commodore, Sinclair and all the others. Even more recently, Sun, SGI and all the big non Wintel companies have used their own OS. Selling the OS as a separate item has always been atypical.

So, Scenario 1: MS manage to convince HP and DEC to licence their OS. This makes two a big assumptions in the first place - That they wouldn't want to make their own systems, and that Microsoft would be the ones who manage to convince them. But even if they do go with Microsoft, why are people going to buy these machines? They're not IBM or Apple. They have no software library. We're also assuming that IBM would do everything in house, even though Apple became successful from third party software (i.e. visicalc). My view is that IBM would make their own system, and it would sell because it was an IBM. All businesses would buy one, and prices would remain high.

It's possible that MS would get to the same position they're in right now by writing Windows, but they'd need some degree of success beforehand, and they would be competing directly with OS2

Meanwhile, the rest of the market would create their own competing incompatible computers. Eventually, a few of these companies would work to come up with a standard. This may use a third party's software. However, even though IBM are keeping prices high, the cost of the home computer would fall - possibly even more - and we'd have a situation similar to the 8-bit era lasting until a standard is formed.

As for Scenario 2 (and I can't imagine MS would object to exclusivity back then): Well, I think things would turn out just the same. IBM would be more likely to succeed. If MS created windows, it would be more likely to be licenced exclusively to IBM.

The tech industry would always have evolved. If someone can make hardware for less, then they will do so.