IBM Personal Computer
The IBM Personal Computer, often referred to as the IBM PC, is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team of engineers and designers at International Business Machines, directed by William C. Lowe and Philip Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida.
Powered by an x86-architecture Intel 8088 processor, the machine was based on open architecture and third-party peripherals. Over time, expansion cards and software technology increased to support it. The PC had a substantial influence on the personal computer market; the specifications of the IBM PC became one of the most popular computer design standards in the world. The only significant competition it faced from a non-compatible platform throughout the 1980s was from Apple's Macintosh product line, as well as consumer-grade platforms created by companies like Commodore and Atari. Most present-day personal computers share architectural features in common with the original IBM PC, including the Intel-based Mac computers manufactured from 2006 to 2022.
History
Prior to the 1980s, IBM had largely been known as a provider of business computer systems. As the 1980s opened, their market share in the growing minicomputer market failed to keep up with competitors, while other manufacturers were beginning to see impressive profits in the microcomputer space. The market for personal computers was dominated at the time by Tandy, Commodore, and Apple, whose machines sold for several hundred dollars each and had become very popular. The microcomputer market was large enough for IBM's attention, with $15 billion in sales by 1979 and projected annual growth of more than 40% during the early 1980s. Other large technology companies had entered it, such as Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, and Data General, and some large IBM customers were buying Apples.As early as 1980 there were rumors of IBM developing a personal computer, possibly a miniaturized version of the IBM System/370, and Matsushita acknowledged publicly that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer in partnership, although this project was abandoned. The public responded to these rumors with skepticism, owing to IBM's tendency towards slow-moving, bureaucratic business practices tailored towards the production of large, sophisticated and expensive business systems. As with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development, and a well publicized quote from an industry analyst was, "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance."
IBM had previously produced microcomputers, such as 1975's IBM 5100, but targeted them towards businesses; the 5100 had a price tag as high as $20,000. Their entry into the home computer market needed to be competitively priced.
In the summer of 1979, Ron Mion, IBM’s Senior Business Trends Advisor for entry-level systems, proposed a plan for IBM to enter the emerging microcomputer market. At that time, the likes of Apple and Tandy were starting to encroach on the small-business marketplace that IBM intended to dominate. Mion believed that that market would grow significantly and that IBM should aggressively pursue it. However, he felt that they wouldn’t be successful unless IBM departed from its long-standing business model.
Mion’s plan called for three major departures from how IBM traditionally did business. Mion felt that, if IBM wanted to compete in the microcomputer market, it would need to:
That plan made its way up the chain of command but was ultimately rejected in the fall. The top IBM executives reaffirmed that all “IBM” computers, and their major components, must be developed, manufactured, sold, and serviced by IBM.
In January 1980, Tandy released their Annual Report and, as was predicted in Mion's plan, it confirmed that their 1979 shipments had exceeded 100,000 TRS-80s. IBM quickly dusted off Mion’s marketing plan.
In 1980, IBM president John Opel, recognizing the value of entering this growing market, assigned William C. Lowe and Philip Don Estridge as heads of the new Entry Level Systems unit in Boca Raton, Florida. Market research found that computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but they insisted the company use a design based on standard parts, not IBM-designed ones so that stores could perform their own repairs rather than requiring customers to send machines back to IBM for service. Another source cites time pressure as the reason for the decision to use third-party components.
Atari proposed to IBM in 1980 that it act as original equipment manufacturer for an IBM microcomputer, a potential solution to IBM's known inability to move quickly to meet a rapidly changing market. The idea of acquiring Atari was considered but rejected in favor of a proposal by Lowe that by forming an independent internal working group and abandoning all traditional IBM methods, a design could be delivered within a year and a prototype within 30 days. The prototype worked poorly but was presented with a detailed business plan which proposed that the new computer have an open architecture, use non-proprietary components and software, and be sold through retail stores, all contrary to IBM practice. It also estimated sales of 220,000 computers over three years, more than IBM's entire installed base.
This swayed the Corporate Management Committee, which converted the group into a business unit named "Project Chess", and provided the necessary funding and authority to do whatever was needed to develop the computer in the given timeframe. The team received permission to expand to 150 people by the end of 1980, and in one day more than 500 IBM employees called in asking to join.
Design process
The design process was kept under a policy of strict secrecy, with all other IBM divisions kept in the dark about the project.Several CPUs were considered, including the Texas Instruments TMS9900, Motorola 68000 and Intel 8088. The 68000 had 32 bit registers with a flat 24 bit address space for up to 16MB of memory and was considered the best choice, but was not production-ready like the others. The IBM 801 RISC processor was also considered, since it was considerably more powerful than the other options, but rejected due to the design constraint to use off-the-shelf parts. The TMS9900 had only 16 bits of address space which was the same as other 8 bit chips and was rejected as it was inferior to the Intel 8088 which had 20 bits of address space which could use one megabyte of memory.
The Intel 8086 architecture had 16 bit registers and used a segment scheme to increase the address space to 20 bits or 1MB of memory which complicated programming but was a big step up from 64K limit of most 8 bit chips. The 8086 was designed as a source code compatible, though not binary compatible, extension of the older 8080 which made it easier to port existing software like BASIC. IBM chose the 8088 variant of the 16 bit 8086 because Intel offered a better price for the former and could provide more units, and the 8088's 8-bit bus reduced the cost of the rest of the computer. The 8088 had the advantage that IBM already had familiarity with the 8085 from designing the IBM System/23 Datamaster. The 62-pin expansion bus slots were also designed to be similar to the Datamaster slots, and its keyboard design and layout became the Model F keyboard shipped with the PC, but otherwise the PC design differed in many ways.
The 8088 motherboard was designed in 40 days, with a working prototype created in four months, demonstrated in January 1981. The design was essentially complete by April 1981, when it was handed off to the manufacturing team. PCs were assembled in an IBM plant in Boca Raton, with components made at various IBM and third party factories. The monitor was an existing design from IBM Japan; the printer was manufactured by Epson. Because none of the functional components were designed by IBM, they obtained only a handful of patents on the PC, covering such features as the bytecoding for color monitors, DMA access operation, and the keyboard interface. They were never enforced.
Many of the designers were computer hobbyists who owned their own computers, including many Apple II owners, which influenced the decisions to design the computer with an open architecture and publish technical information so others could create compatible software and expansion slot peripherals.
During the design process IBM avoided vertical integration as much as possible, for example choosing to license Microsoft BASIC rather than utilizing the in-house version of BASIC used for mainframes due to the better existing public familiarity with the Microsoft version.
Debut
The IBM PC debuted on August 12, 1981, after a twelve-month development. Pricing started at $1,565 for a configuration with 16 KB RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, keyboard, and no disk drives. The price was designed to compete with comparable machines in the market. For comparison, the Datamaster, announced two weeks earlier as IBM's least expensive computer, cost $10,000.IBM's marketing campaign licensed the likeness of Charlie Chaplin's character "The Little Tramp" for a series of advertisements based on Chaplin's movies, played by Billy Scudder.
The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell a computer through retail channels rather than directly to customers. Because it did not have retail experience other than the IBM Product Centers it began opening in 1980, the company ensured that software like VisiCalc and EasyWriter was quickly available. It partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears, which provided important knowledge of the marketplace and competed with IBM's own direct sales force. More than 190 ComputerLand stores already existed, while Sears was in the process of creating a handful of in-store computer centers for sale of the new product.
Reception was overwhelmingly positive, with analysts estimating sales volume in the billions of dollars in the first few years after release. After release, IBM's PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry. Dealers were overwhelmed with orders, including customers offering pre-payment for machines with no guaranteed delivery date. By the time the machine began shipping, the term "PC" was becoming a household name.