THE IBM 5051 PC IS RELEASED IN BOCA RATON, FLORIDA

IBM PC 5051

Today, The Grandma is preparing new courses for next season. She works with different computers and one of them is an IBM Personal Computer 5150, a model that was introduced on a day like today in 1981. She is an old-fashioned woman who still can enjoy with her IBM PC 5150.

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version of the IBM PC compatible computer design.

It is IBM model number 5150 and was introduced on August 12, 1981. It was created by a team of engineers and designers directed by Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida.

The generic term personal computer (PC) was in use years before 1981, applied as early as 1972 to the Xerox PARC's Alto, but the term PC came to mean more specifically a desktop microcomputer compatible with IBM's Personal Computer branded products. The machine was based on open architecture, and third-party suppliers soon developed to provide peripheral devices, expansion cards, and software.

IBM had a substantial influence on the personal computer market in standardizing a design for personal computers, and IBM compatible became an important criterion for sales growth. Only the Apple Macintosh types of computer kept a significant share of the microcomputer market after the 1980s without compatibility with the IBM personal computer.

More information: IBM

International Business Machines (IBM) had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market during the early 1980s. Slow development of a minicomputer product of its own during the 1960s, however, let new rivals like Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and others earn billions of dollars of revenue.

Desktop sized programmable calculators by HP had evolved into the HP 9830 BASIC language computer by 1972. During 1972–1973 a team managed by Dr. Paul Friedl at the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype known as SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small cathode ray tube, and full-function keyboard. SCAMP emulates the IBM 1130r to execute APL\1130.

In 1973 the APL programming language was generally available only for mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because it was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single-user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a revolutionary concept and the world's first personal computer.

The Grandma works with an IBM PC 5150

The prototype is in the Smithsonian Institution. A non-working industrial design model was also created in 1973 by industrial designer Tom Hardy illustrating how the SCAMP engineering prototype could be transformed into a usable product design for the marketplace. 

This design model was requested by IBM executive William C. Lowe to complement the engineering prototype in his early efforts to demonstrate the viability of creating a single-user computer.

Successful demonstrations of the 1973 SCAMP prototype resulted in the IBM 5100 portable microcomputer in 1975. During the late 1960s such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton. The 5100 is a complete computer system programmable with BASIC or APL, with a small built-in CRT monitor, keyboard, and tape drive for data storage. It was also very expensive, as much as US$20,000; the computer was designed for professional and scientific customers, not business users or hobbyists.

BYTE in 1975 announced the 5100 with the headline Welcome, IBM, to personal computing, but PC Magazine in 1984 described 5100s as little mainframes and stated that as personal computers, these machines were dismal failures... the antithesis of user-friendly, with no IBM support for third-party software.

Despite news reports that the PC was the first IBM product without a model number, it was designated as the IBM 5150, putting it in the 5100 series though its architecture was not developed from the IBM 5100. The same naming system was applied to later models: For example, the IBM Portable Personal Computer, PC/XT, and PC AT were IBM machine types 5155, 5160, and 5170, respectively.

More information: Computer History

After SCAMP, the IBM Boca Raton, Florida Laboratory created several single-user computer design ideas to assist Lowe's ongoing effort to convince IBM there was a strategic opportunity in the personal computer business.

A selection of these early design ideas created by Hardy is featured in the book DELETE: A Design History of Computer Vapourware. One such concept in 1977, code-named Aquarius, is a working prototype utilizing advanced bubble memory cartridges. While this design is more powerful and smaller than the Apple II introduced the same year, the advanced bubble technology was deemed unstable and not ready for mass production.

IBM normally was integrated vertically, developing all important hardware and software internally with only what was available in internal catalogs of IBM components, and only purchasing parts like transformers and semiconductors. The company's purchase of Rolm during 1984 was its first acquisition in 18 years. IBM discouraged customers from purchasing compatible third-party products.

Before the PC, IBM began using some components from other companies to save money and time, and when designing it the company avoided vertical integration as much as possible; choosing, for example, to license Microsoft BASIC despite having a version of BASIC of its own for mainframes.

IBM PC 5051

Estridge said that unlike IBM's own version Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?

Although the company denied doing so, many observers concluded that IBM intentionally emulated Apple when designing the PC. The many Apple II owners on the team influenced its decision to design the computer with an open architecture and publish technical information so others could create software and expansion slot peripherals.

After developing it in 12 months -faster than any other hardware product in company history- IBM announced the Personal Computer on August 12, 1981. Pricing started at US$1,565 (equivalent to $4,401 in 2019) for a configuration with 16K RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, and no disk drives.

The company intentionally set prices for it and other configurations that were comparable to those of Apple and other rivals; the Datamaster, announced two weeks earlier as the previous least-expensive IBM computer, cost $10,000. What Dan Bricklin described as pretty competitive pricing surprised him and other Software Arts employees. One analyst stated that IBM has taken the gloves off, while the company said we suggest the PC's price invites comparison.

BYTE described IBM as having the strongest marketing organization in the world, but the PC's marketing also differed from that of previous products. The company was aware of its strong corporate reputation among potential customers; an early advertisement began Presenting the IBM of Personal Computers.

Estridge recalled that The most important thing we learned was that how people reacted to a personal computer emotionally was almost more important than what they did with it.

Advertisements emphasized the novelty of an individual owning an IBM computer, describing a product you may have a personal interest in and asking readers to think of My own IBM computer. Imagine that... it's yours. For your business, your project, your department, your class, your family and, indeed, for yourself.

More information: Habr

Perhaps most unusual decision for IBM was to publish the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create products for it. We encourage third-party suppliers... we are delighted to have them, the company stated.

Although the team began dogfooding before the PC's debut by managing business operations on prototypes, and despite IBM's $5.3 billion R&D budget in 1982 -larger than the total revenue of many competitors- the company did not sell internally developed PC software until April 1984, instead relying on already established software companies. Microsoft, Personal Software, and Peachtree Software were among the developers of nine launch titles including EasyWriter and VisiCalc, all already available for other computers.

The PC was immediately successful. PC Magazine later wrote that IBM's biggest error was in underestimating the demand for the PC. BYTE reported a rumor that more than 40,000 were ordered on the day of the announcement; one dealer received 22 $1,000 deposits from customers although he could not promise a delivery date.

John Dvorak recalled that a dealer that day praised the computer as an incredible winner, and IBM knows how to treat us -none of the Apple arrogance. The company could have sold its entire projected first-year production to employees, and IBM customers that were reluctant to purchase Apples were glad to buy microcomputers from their traditional supplier. The computer began shipping during October, ahead of schedule; by then some referred to it simply as the PC.

One year after the PC's release, although IBM had sold fewer than 100,000 computers, PC World counted 753 software packages for the PC -more than four times the number available for the Apple Macintosh one year after its 1984 release- including 422 applications and almost 200 utilities and languages.

More information: Wired

What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling

place for me is the passion of the company, and its people,

to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.

Ginni Rometty