The IBM PC

The IBM PC

We got one of the first IBM PC's (the "original IBM PC") in 1982. I was working for IBM then, and they offered them to employees at a special price. Having worked with, and sold, million-dollar computers for 15 years, the idea I could personally buy one and put it in my house was too much to pass up. Our PC-1 had a 5 1/4" floppy drive - I think the floppies held 100K. The memory on the system was 16K. I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do with a home computer, but it was great, because the kids were at just the right age to teach themselves how to program, and to trade computer games with their friends.

Software

We used an early version of DOS, and you programmed in Basic. We got Word Star as a word processor. Remember Word Star? It was the de facto word processing standard, and over the next 5 years that company frittered away an incredible franchise. It's a case study in how to lose a market you own! (Ditto VisiCalc, which lost the spreadsheet market to Lotus 1-2-3.)

Buying PC's

IBM set up a deal with ComputerLand and a couple of other stores, so employees buying PC's could get help setting them up. We went up one evening and sat with 9-10 other families, while this kid showed us how to unbox our new computer, open up the case to install the floppy drive, hook everything up, and load the software. Of course, hardly anyone's system worked right the first time, so they helped us figure out what was wrong and get us running. That part of the computer business hasn't changed much in the last 15 years!

If you're under 30 read this!

That IBM PC cost somewhere between $1000 and $2000 in 1982. Look what you can buy in a PC for $1-2K in 1997! And if you consider what a 1982 dollar is worth today, my 200MHz Pentium MMX Aptiva, with 32MB, a 12X CD-ROM, 4G hard drive, super multimedia everything, a fancy color printer and scanner, cost no more than that 16K PC with its 100K floppy and stone-age processor cost 15 years ago.

That kind of technology progress (they call it the "price/performance curve") is what has enabled modern computing to reshape our society. I've watched it for the last 30 years, and the changes were unimaginable back in the 60's. It will change again, by at least as much, over the next 30 years.

Hang on - the fun is just beginning!

If you have stories to share, or pictures, please write me at denichols@ridgefield-ct.com.

Buy The Microprocessor: A Biography
by Michael S. Malone

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