Encyclopedia
The
IBM PC , was the original version and progenitor of the
IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It was introduced on August 12, 1981. The original model was designated the
IBM 5150. It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of
Don Estridge of the
IBM Entry Systems Division in
Boca Raton, Florida.
The phrase "Personal Computer" was common currency before 1981, and was used as early as 1972 to characterize
Xerox PARC's
Alto. However, because of the success of the IBM PC, what had been a generic term came to mean specifically a
microcomputer compatible with IBM's specification.
During the second quarter of 2005, the Chinese
Lenovo Group secured the rights to produce IBM branded personal computers. This move reflects IBM's present focus on server/
mainframe markets and business consulting and
information technology services.
Note the following distinctions within the general subject of personal computers:
- For details on "PC compatible" computers , see IBM PC compatible
- For a discussion of generic "personal computers", see personal computer
- For details of the second generation of microcomputers, which largely died out with the Personal Computer revolution, see home computer
The IBM PC concept
The original
PC was an IBM attempt to get into the home computer market then dominated by the
Apple II and a host of
CP/M machines. By the end of the 1970s, indeed, apart from the existing IBM 5110 Datamaster marketed by its General Systems Division there was already yet another entrant, from IBM Instruments Inc.
Rather than going through the usual IBM design process, which had already failed to design an affordable microcomputer , a special team was assembled with authorization to bypass normal company restrictions and get something to market rapidly. This project was given the code name
Project Chess.
Thus the first effective product champion, in 1980, was William C Lowe, the manager of the Entry Systems Unit, in Boca Raton, Florida, where the PC eventually came to be manufactured. It was he who conceived the project and assembled the thirteen engineers who later entered legend as the 'Dirty Dozen'; and finally obtained the go-ahead from the CMC towards the end of 1980. The ease with which this permission was partly to do with John Opel's drive at that time for 'intrapreneurial' Independent Business Units, but mainly because it was seen as peripheral to IBM's business as usual. The PC was only expected to have a lifetime demand of 250,000 units, and only needed $14 million in start up capital. The truth is that nobody else in IBM wanted it. Even though there was a real buzz about the new project, Richard Young said he had no intention of forcing it on his salesforce. Worse, although he supported the idea of it being sold through OPD's 'Product Centers', he opposed it being sold elsewhere . Fortunately he was overruled by Opel.
According to Buck Rodgers, then an IBM Vice President, they were given the brief "We want an IBM Personal Computer. We're already late, so you'll have to hurry. Do whatever you feel is necessary to get it done". In a matter of only a few months he and his small team then put together the whole PC operation. Indeed, the first demonstration model was assembled from the standard components - which were to become the PC's special feature - in just 30 days!
The team consisted of just twelve people headed by
Don Estridge. They succeeded in developing the PC in about a year. To achieve this they first decided to build the machine with "off-the-shelf" parts from a variety of different original equipment manufacturers and countries. Previously IBM had developed their own components. Second, they decided on an open architecture so that other manufacturers could produce and sell peripheral components and compatible software. The
ROM BIOS source code was published. IBM did not anticipate that its competitors would find ways to legally duplicate the entire system.
At the time, Don Estridge and his team considered using the
801 processor and its operating system that had been developed at the IBM research laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York The 801 was at least an order of magnitude more powerful than the
Intel 8088, and the operating system many years more advanced than the DOS operating system from
Microsoft, that were finally selected. Ruling out an in-house solution made the team’s job much easier and may have avoided a delay in the schedule, but the ultimate consequences of this decision for IBM were far-reaching.
IN the event, IBM signed with Intel for its 8088 chip, a decision which would have been difficult to avoid, Tandon for the disk drives , SCI Systems for the circuit boards and Zenith for the power supplies. Epson was to supply the separate printers. Some bits, just a select few , were from other parts of IBM. The printer was almost immediately to prove somewhat of an embarrassment when Epson started to sell their next generation, improved, printer for less! But it was a period when there was considerable emphasis in the IBU's on sub contracting as much as possible.
Other manufacturers soon reverse engineered the BIOS to produce their own non-infringing functional copies. Columbia Data Products introduced the first IBM-PC compatible computer in June 1982.
Compaq Computer Corporation announced the
Compaq Portable, the first portable IBM PC compatible in November 1982 .
Once the
IBM PC became a commercial success the
PC came back under the usual IBM management control, with the result that competitors had little trouble taking the lead from them. .
As of June 2006, IBM PC and XT models are still in use at the majority of U.S.
National Weather Service upper-air observing sites. The computers are used to process data as it is returned from the ascending
radiosonde, attached to a
weather balloon. They are being phased out over a several year period, to be replaced by the Radiosonde Replacement System.
Third-party distribution channels
Sears Roebuck and Computerland executives were involved with the IBM team from the start. The IBMers - especially H.L. Sparks, who was in charge of sales and marketing - relied on them for much of their knowledge of the marketplace. In turn, almost by default, they were to become the main outlets for the new product. Sears Roebuck would set up a handful of centers and, most important, the more than 190 stores of Computerland already existed. From IBM's point of view, this meant that even at announcement there would be immediate widespread distribution across the US. In the event, Sears Roebuck failed to live up to expectations, when the new PC turned out to be selling to the office market rather than the home - where it had originally been targeted.
The use of outside organisations to sell IBM's products did not stop with the PC; for the whole of IBM's business had gradually evolved to the state where it was selling ever larger numbers of ever cheaper 'boxes'. The only way that IBM felt - at that time - it could, in general, handle the numbers of these new customers was by handing over the lower end of its business to 'retailers'; an approach that many other companies had successfully adopted in the past - from the producers of groceries to the manufacturers of cars . Certainly, by the end of the 1990s, more PCs were being sold worldwide than cars or even TVs.
IBM mass marketing
IBM PC Group sub-contracted its 'mass marketing' to third parties. In the first instance this was, almost by default, an essential part of the birth of the PC. Then, following the initial stupendous success of the PC, and swayed by this, with great enthusiasm for other products as well. Indeed for a time it adopted it as the answer to almost any problem. In the process it, once more, did not seem learn any lessons from the experience of others, and naively handed over responsibility for its key end users to a group of people who were often ill equipped to maintain IBM's normal high standards. Then it stimulated price cutting, which rapidly eroded any standards that were there.
The 'revolution' in IBM's distribution channels, though, appeared with the PC. Thus the only way the IBU, with no sales resources of its own, could sell the product was through dealers. It was fortunate that such a dealer network had already emerged to serve the growing market developed by Apple and the other infant manufacturers of micro-computers. One of the first of the dealers, the original Byte Shop had already made its own contribution to the PC revolution, by buying the first 50 Apple II's.
Perhaps the most important leader of this retail 'revolution' was William H Millard. In 1974 he launched a company, IMSAI, to build what was claimed to be the first truly integrated personal computers; sold as kits to hobbyists and the rapidly growing numbers of retailers . The computer, the IMSAI 8080, may not have made Millard's fortune, but his resulting experiences with the inexperienced and under capitalized retailers did! In 1976 he asked his Sales Director, Ed Faber , to start a new franchise operation, soon to become Computerland. Faber first designed a pilot store, at Hayward , with the then revolutionary concept of providing a 'full service' store offering under one roof all that the customer needed to support their PC's. He then moved very rapidly to set up the franchises. The first franchisee was in Morristown, New Jersey, and was rapidly followed by a chain across the US. It set a pattern that dominated PC retailing for the next decade. By the time IBM arrived on the scene the network of branches, all run by franchisees, had grown to 190 in number. By the end of 1985, when Millard retired, there were some 800 branches and he had become another of the computer billionaires. Most of Computerland later succumbed; which highlights the importance of cashing in your chips when they are worth something, and not investing after the peak has passed!
Thus at the time the PC was launched there was already the basis of a retail network, which could be signed up immediately ; one that IBM made good use of. There were, of course, many other independent retailers, and many more sprang up to exploit the market tapped by the PC . PC retailing became one of the few explosive growth areas of business in the early 1980's.
Value-added resellers
Buoyed up by the success it had made distributing PC's via dealers, typewriter dealers were also introduced by IBM to some of its other problem areas; as were a similar concept, VAR's for its languishing Series/1. This whole process was a revelation to IBM. Whilst not totally unplanned, the revolution soon overwhelmed what plans there were; no one in 1980 would have ever thought in their wildest dreams that up to a third of IBM's total business might one day handled by Third Parties . As a result of these revelations IBM indulged in its usual habit of setting up a number of task forces. The task force flavor of that month became 'channels'; that is 'channels' of distribution. No longer was IBM to be constrained by the limitations of its own sales forces; its future was also to be through Third Parties.
The 'solution' of Third Parties came as an answer to a maiden's prayer. IBM had just realized that it was moving into the business of ever lower priced boxes, selling though in ever larger quantities, across its whole range - not just the PC. It had also just committed itself to the philosophy of being the world's lowest cost producer. Although this was a philosophy largely aimed at manufacturing, justifying the massive investment in highly automated new plant, IBM was beginning to realise it should be paralleled by a similar commitment on the marketing front. This was a very difficult, if not impossible, objective within the parameters set by IBM's normal overheads. The later target, again in the mid 1908s and taking into account the existence of Third Parties, was that no IBM salesman should ever visit a prospect that was worth less than $50,000 in business; which would have left a great many accounts uncovered, if it were not for the Third Parties.
Mainframe agents
As evidenced by PC Dealers, Third Parties seemed to offer a very suitable alternative for other parts of the business. So, following its new found enthusiasms and the recommendations of its task forces, IBM was then set out to offer even its range of mainframes by the same 'channels'! It was understandably nervous, however, about allowing mainframe Third Parties the degree of freedom that PC Dealers enjoyed; and it didn't, in any case, much relish the cost of supporting their relatively high margins. The apparent answer, identified by the task-forces, was the use of Agents. These would act, on behalf of IBM, in exactly the same way as IBM's own salesmen and SE's. For a margin, or commission, they would sell and install; exactly according to IBM's rules. IBM would undertake all the other activities; and would accept all responsibility .
IBM had already started some mainframe activity in the form of CMA's , whereby software houses with specific products were funded by IBM to install the IBM products as well as their own. This was obviously attractive to the CMA's, who would have undertaken much of the effort anyway. It was not, though, a major marketing effort by IBM standards.
The die was thus cast for Agents, but it took something like 18 months for IBM, with a number of task-forces, to decide the details. It was obvious from the beginning that Agents with specific products, the existing CMA's, would inevitably be included. The more debatable question was that of Territory Agents; Agents without specific products who would be given a geographical area or an industry type, where IBM would not otherwise sell. In the end IBM did also include Territory Agents; though it proved much more difficult to recruit these than the CMA's.
Managing the agents
The second question revolved around who within IBM would manage the Agents. Initially it was assumed that this would be by a staff function, located within BDD , as too was the PC group at that time. Eventually, though the somewhat surprising decision was taken to manage the Agents out of the branches .
The final decision was the level of discount . The original plan looked for only around 8% ; though this was eventually just about doubled .
The Agent programmes did not prove as much of a bonanza as those of the PC Dealers; though this might have been due to the less favorable business climate . Since the beginning of the project there had always been those, though, who had held that all the business must go to the Dealers, not Agents; but IBM never felt confident enough to do this .
Sales hierarchy
All of this eventually resulted in a three level 'hierarchy' of sales activities. At the top were the traditional IBM sales forces; selling - in their inimitable style - the larger mainframes to the larger accounts. In the middle came, at least in theory , the Agents selling low end mainframes to smaller prospects . At the lowest level were the Dealers; selling, in particular, PCs to a myriad of end users. The picture was muddied by Dealers being split into two tiers, with the upper tier limited in numbers and supposedly providing a more sophisticated level of support on more complex machines, that started to overlap the Agent layer. In reality they were just selling a greater number of boxes . It was a grand design which appeared to have a neat logic to it. It was, though, a significant departure from the style of selling IBM knew so well; which by then was supposed only to represent the top layer of the hierarchy. It is significant that Buck Rodgers, writing at the time devoted less than two pages of his book to the Dealers , despite his claim to have presented the original 'scenario' for such new 'channels of distribution'.
Armonk was nothing if not courageous, if just as foolhardy, in its moves. It almost seemed, once more, to relish the new challenges. At the time there was a strange air of machismo in the air, especially in the major task force with which I worked at the time. It was almost as if the managers' masculinity had to be bolstered by taking ever bigger risks, without any obvious justification. As you might expect, I strongly advised against this; and, in the heady atmosphere that prevailed, was simply thought to be weak! Needless to say, sadly for IBM, my view did not carry the day - it was not even really considered.
Dealers
This then brings us back to the PC Dealers, who - up to that point - certainly had been very successful, at least in terms of rapidly generating new sales.
One rather peculiar factor common to the PC Dealer networks world-wide was that, at least in the early days, they were almost exclusively the province of small businesses. Even the large 'chains', such as Computerland and its clones, were franchised; so that their 1,000 or more franchisees, including were each a small business . This had not been for want of ambition, or lack of expectation of profit, by the larger organisations. It is not clear why this should have been; since many large organisations around the world tried - and signally failed to make the expected inroads on the market, and had to withdraw.
Glass on the street
IBM had no direct control over such retailers; they were several thousand independent businesses, who simply stocked IBM PC equipment along with that of other manufacturers. For obvious legal reasons, IBM could not set or enforce any direct standards, such as retail prices. To achieve some limited degree of indirect control, as it thought, IBM originally insisted on a very high standard for those items it could legitimately demand. Thus Dealers were required to have a ground floor showroom with at least one demonstration model of each IBM product they were authorized to sell . The reason for this was not so much the belief in IBM that such facilities were essential . The real reason for these, and the other apparently unnecessarily onerous conditions, was that they were a device to raise the entry price to such a level that only companies of substance could afford to buy in to the game! This 'cover charge' was, on paper, of the order of £30,000
The 'high street' retailer, based on the Computerland model, had been a strong force in the US; probably accounting for the majority of sales. In Europe, and particularly in the UK, the picture was more complex. Due to the relatively late entry of the US chains such as Computerland , the initial market was captured by software and systems houses, though a large proportion of these offered services which were indistinguishable from the high street chains. They only differed in their image; in particular they were away from the prime high street sites and able, therefore, to avoid some of the penalties of the entry price.
Box shifters
Unfortunately, for those dealers who had paid their entry price, and in the long run also for IBM, there now developed another breed; the 'box shifters'. These were the outlets, sometimes high street retailers or systems houses but mainly warehouse based stores - favoured accordingly by much lower market entry prices - specializing in this form of business, which obtained their business by selling at a discount; with much of the flavor of the eastern bazaar!
The essence of this PC sales process became the art of haggling; on one side the customer held out for the highest discount and on the other the retailer pared his support to nothing and hoped that he wouldn't be forced into bankruptcy. It could not have been further from IBM's then normal style, of sophisticated support for selling in depth. Yet it was due in no small part to IBM's own choosing. Its draconian rules for entry gradually slipped, leaving those who had originally supported it burdened by large debts which the newcomers did not have, and - worse still - IBM's staff actually started to favor these box-shifters . Compaq, on the other hand, pointed out with great glee to dealers that their products were not as heavily discounted as those of IBM; and paradoxically Compaq assumed, very profitably, much of the mantle discarded by IBM.
Commercial success
The first
IBM PC was released on August 12, 1981. Although not cheap, at a base price of $1,565 it was affordable for businesses — and it was business that purchased the PC. However it was not the corporate "computer department" that was responsible for this, for the PC was not seen as a 'proper' computer. It was generally well educated middle managers that saw the potential of the
VisiCalc spreadsheet and 18 months later, its "
killer app" successor
Lotus 1-2-3. Reassured by the IBM name, they began buying the machines on their own budgets to help do the calculations they had learned at business school.
Indeed, the US launch of the basic PC, in August 1981, was an outstanding success. On the day of announcement there were already orders for 30,000 PC's; from IBM's US employees alone! This meant that around 20% of its own workforce bought a machine, and in the process began to develop programs and act as trend setters in their local communities. Not that much leading was necessary, for sales far exceeded target and were limited by production capacity for the first 18 months of the product's life; and this was the main reason for the delay in announcing the PC in World Trade, where it was not until 1983 that it finally reached users.
The PC was one of the most successful launches of a new product ever. Its impact on the media was even greater. Orders outstripped production by a massive amount, and production only started to catch with demand in 1983 when production had been increased six-fold. The PC became, especially as conveyed by the Charlie Chaplin commercials, the new face of IBM. Time[i] enthused "The tramp campaign has been so successful that it has created a new image for IBM…has given IBM a human face".
IBM PC models
The models of IBM's first-generation Personal Computer series have names:
- The original PC had a version of Microsoft BASIC —IBM Cassette BASIC— in ROM. The CGA video card could use a standard television
...
for display, or MDA adapter and monochrome display model 5151. The standard storage device was
cassette tape. A
floppy disk drive was an optional extra; no
hard disk was available. It had only five expansion slots; maximum memory using IBM parts was 256 kB, 64 kB on the main board and three 64 kB expansion cards. The processor was an
Intel 8088 running at 4.77 MHz, which could be replaced with a NEC V20 for a slight increase in processing speed. An
Intel 8087 co-processor could also be added for enhanced mathematical processing power. IBM sold it in configurations with 16 kB or 64 kB of
RAM preinstalled using either 9 or 36, 16 kbit DRAM chips. The IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis was eventually released that allowed for more expansion boards to be installed as well as additional hard drives.
- The original PC proved too expensive for the home market, but was an unexpectedly large success with businesses. The "IBM Personal Computer XT" was an enhanced machine designed for business use. It had 8 expansion slots and a 10 megabyte hard disk. It could take 256 kB of memory on the main board ; later models were expandable to 640 kB. It was usually sold with a Monochrome Display Adapter video card. The processor was still a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 and the expansion bus still 8-bit Industry Standard Architecture with XT bus architecture.
- The "IBM Personal Computer/AT", announced August 1984, used an Intel 80286 processor, originally at 6 MHz. It had a 16-bit ISA bus and 20 MB hard drive. A faster model, running at 8 MHz, was introduced in 1986. IBM made some attempt at marketing it as a multi-user machine, but it sold mainly as a faster PC for power users. Early PC/ATs were plagued with reliability problems, in part because of some software and hardware incompatibilities, but mostly related to the internal 20 MB hard disk. While some people blamed IBM's hard disk controller card and others blamed the hard disk manufacturer Computer Memories Inc. , the IBM controller card worked fine with other drives, including CMI's 33-megabyte model. The problems introduced doubt about the computer and, for a while, even about the 286 architecture in general, but after IBM replaced the 20 MB CMI drives, the PC/AT proved reliable and became a lasting industry standard.
The second generation
IBM Personal System/2 , are known by model number: Model 25, Model 30. Within each series, the models are also commonly referenced by their CPU clock rate.
All IBM personal computers are
software compatible with each other in general, but not every program will work in every machine. Some programs are time sensitive to a particular speed class. Older programs will not take advantage of newer higher-resolution display standards.
Anarchy in the PC market
In the mid 1980s IBM thus found itself with a new, and very rapidly growing, phenomenon on its hands; and one that showed every symptom of being out of control. In some respects this was inevitable. The original team of 13 had - of course - grown rapidly, but it had also taken over other parts of IBM, most notably manufacturing plants, which were driven by IBM's more normal culture; and, as early as 1983 the number of its employees had passed 10,000. This was no longer a challenge to be solved by 'intrapreneurship'. The reaction, albeit delayed rather longer than might have been expected, was predictable. PC group was integrated into the, "Big Blue", business as usual, and its IBU "licence" was withdrawn! Over a couple of years a large proportion of the management team was substituted by "Big Blue" appointees. By the end of 1985, at the time of the massive "regionalisation" reorganisation, PC group was firmly entrenched as a division of "Big Blue". Its new management - following in the image of John Akers who had just taken over as IBM's CEO - was gradually instilling the traditional IBM values and disciplines; so that, for example it no longer made the mistake of single sourcing on manufacturing or development. They had, whilst reassuring its then 2,000 authorized retailers that they were still an integral part of IBM's product marketing strategy, even announced that they were to tighten up the quality of the dealer network; though they never made any headway on this front. In the US to try to enforce this they even used the equivalent of a headcount freeze, IBM's traditional internal answer; they froze the dealer network, not allowing any new additions, and still failed to control it!
The dramatically rapid growth of the PC was an outstanding success, but it left IBM with a number of problems; largely because the pressure of events demanded such fast responses that long term planning was not always possible. The first of these was the "Open Architecture"; with consequential vulnerability to, and reliance on, outside suppliers. This concept had a great many advantages, ranging from faster market growth to competitive position . One suspects, though, that had IBM planned the strategy in its usual meticulous manner there would have been a significantly greater degree of IBM control written in. The clear evidence, from the PS/2 range - and even from the RISC based PC RT - for example, is that IBM was gradually attempting to reassert some greater degree of control; but it never did!
PC price wars
A bigger problem was that of the price war. As the market became less buoyant , the dealers, which IBM had still failed to control in any meaningful way, started a price war that helped nobody, least of all IBM. In part this was due to the shake out of those dealers who couldn't make the grade, and - with cash-flow problems - started to liquidate their stocks. Partly it was due to the more aggressive box shifting attitude of the PC group management; who did not recognise that end of life promotional discounts would destabilise the market even more. In the main though it was probably due to IBM's discounting structure which had price breaks that encouraged dealers to sell the last few machines at a heavy discount; so that they could reach the next price break and obtain a better price overall on their purchases.
Many commentators have wrongly claimed that the decline of IBM was brought about by external forces which it could not handle. IBM had survived many worse changes in its environment. The problem was that IBM itself created the changes in the environment which destroyed its position, changes which it could not then handle! The dealer price war was one particularly important example of this - especially in terms of its spread to the rest of IBM, and its eventual undermining of its margin - to unprofitable levels - across the whole of IBM. The war was started by the incompetent handling of the
PS/2 launch, and was exacerbated by IBM's lack of control over its dealers; indeed, it was fuelled by strong encouragement from IBM's PC Group management who wanted the extra short-term sales this would bring. IBM scored, yet again, an own goal - and one which was especially important to its long-term future!
At the time it might have looked on paper as if it should have maximised IBM business; loading in stock to create stock pressure on retailers is a standard consumer goods marketing technique. In fact this was true of the system units but not of anything else. At that time, the end buyers did want to see the IBM badge on the front; though increasingly retailers were persuading them that
Compaq, which was not so heavily discounted in the price war , was a better box! The retailers, on the other hand, wanted to see everyone else's cards inside it, and peripherals attached, since these competitors offered better margins; and the customers were often unaware of the differences. The result was that, even then, IBM was suffering - by shipping a number of relatively "empty" boxes; a fact which mightily offended it.
Quality of support
Perhaps the worst effect of the price war was that it finally shifted the emphasis from quality of support to price. IBM's extensive market research at the time clearly showed that the buyers wanted high quality support above all else, and were far less interested in marginal cost savings. This was an eminently sensible attitude, where a poorly designed and supported system could cost a company many thousands of pounds in extra costs; and the saving even on the highest discounts ran only into hundreds of pounds. This 'support' was justifiably IBM's strength in the other markets it operated in; and the PC market, with its relatively unsophisticated users, was in greater not lesser need of it.
Unfortunately after visiting a number of PC dealers who stressed the importance of discounted prices, and could barely suppress a smile when 'support' was mentioned, the user was - to say the least - confused. It was not surprising that PC dealer salesmen were rapidly ousting used car salesmen as the symbol of poor, blatantly dishonest, salesmanship. It could not have been further from the traditional IBM style of salesmanship! It was bad for the image of the PC industry, and it costs customers millions of dollars in wasted assets.
This was not necessary. It was a wound self inflicted by the dealers - with a great deal of help from IBM. "Respectable" dealers were desperately aware that their customers needed the support, and the lack of this was holding sales back. Despite this they continued to discount on larger orders, they claimed by necessity, and the essential support could not be offered. The less reputable 'box shifters' staggered from discount to ever larger discount, and closer to bankruptcy; but they had nothing else to offer. It was definitely not the IBM style! Perhaps the greatest short-term damage that was done to IBM was that it legitimised 'cheap' machines. This in turn let in large numbers of "PC Clones", virtually identical copies of IBM hardware, to the major markets. At the time these were sometimes of questionable quality and copyright; but, with practice, they came to be of just as high quality as the machines of IBM - and often had better features. Of course, they were also much cheaper! IBM rapidly lost a significant share of the PC business to these clones, typically produced in Taiwan and Korea by very low priced labour, selling then at perhaps half of IBM's price. If, as the price war apparently demonstrated, price was all that mattered then such clones were just as legitimate as the IBM originals. John Akers at the time even went as far as to foolishly legitimize the position, by publicly stating he thought the PC was probably a commodity,
Margins
At least PC group had, at long last, got its production act together. By then it had some of the most automated plants in the world supplying it with the highest quality products, and the previous supply problems were a thing of the past. It did though still have a profit problem; which was there even before the savage price cuts forced by the competition from the 'clones'. It had a great success in volume terms, but its own internal PC margins were undoubtedly less than the rest of the business. They almost certainly were, even then, as low as half those in the other groups ; though the marketing and admin costs may also have been much lower . It was for this reason that, in the first instance, the World Trade subsidiaries were set up as separate companies; largely to avoid the 10% royalty on product cost that normally was paid back to the US.
It would appear that these relatively very low margins may have caused IBM to fundamentally rethink its strategy. In mid 1986 even John Akers started to talk about the possibility of IBM abandoning parts of the business "where it had become a commodity market" , and IBM froze its advertising budgets as part of a drive to cut costs. Of course, IBM never did leave the market. It probably would have been better had it done so, for the evidence is that it has never made any profit out of the business, and the effect on the rest of IBM was disastrous. This was one of the first of John Aker's acts of indecision which were to cost IBM so dear.
Almost as disastrous for the PCs competitive position, and for IBM's image, was that it started to lose the product development race. The nature of this perversely switched to the power, evidenced by the generation - 286, 386 etc- of the chip inside the machine. This was, of course, one of the gifts which IBM had made to a supplier,
Intel, which then became in effect one of its major competitors!
Technology
Electronics
The main circuit board in an IBM PC is called the
motherboard. This carries the
CPU and
memory, and has a bus with slots for expansion cards.
The bus used in the original PC became very popular, and was subsequently named
ISA. It is in use to this day in computers for industrial use. Later, requirements for higher speed and more capacity forced the development of new versions. IBM introduced the
MCA bus with the PS/2 line. The
VESA Local Bus allowed for up to three, much faster 32-bit cards, and the EISA architecture was developed as a backward compatible standard including 32-bit card slots, but it only sold well in high-end server systems. The lower-cost and more general
PCI bus was introduced in 1994 and has now become ubiquitous.
The motherboard is connected by cables to internal storage devices such as
hard disks,
floppy disks and
CD-ROM drives. These tend to be made in standard sizes, such as 3.5" and 5.25" widths, with standard fixing holes. The case also contains a standard
power supply unit which is either an AT or ATX standard size.
Intel 8086 and
8088-based PCs require EMS boards to work with more than one megabyte of memory. The original IBM PC AT used an Intel
80286 processor which can access up to 16 megabytes of memory Intel 80286-based computers running under
OS/2 can work with the maximum memory.
Keyboard
The original 1981 IBM PC's
keyboard was severely criticised by typists for its non-standard placement of the return and left shift keys. In 1984, IBM corrected this on its AT keyboard, but shortened the backspace key, making it harder to reach. In 1987, it introduced the enhanced keyboard, which relocated all the function keys and the
Ctrl keys. The
Esc key was also relocated to the opposite side of the keyboard.
An "IBM PC compatible" may have a keyboard which does not recognize every key combination a true IBM PC does, e.g. shifted cursor keys. In addition, the "compatible" vendors sometimes used proprietary keyboard interfaces, preventing the keyboard from being replaced.
See also:
Keyboard layoutCharacter set
The original IBM PC used the 7-bit
ASCII alphabet as its basis, but extended it to 8 bits with nonstandard character codes. This character set was not suitable for some international applications, and soon a veritable cottage industry emerged providing variants of the original character set in various national variants. In IBM tradition, these variants were called code pages. These codings are now obsolete, having been replaced by more systematic and standardized forms of character coding, such as ISO 8859-1, Windows-1251 and
Unicode.
This was the original IBM PC character set:
| | | -0 | -1 | -2 | -3 | -4 | -5 | -6 | -7 | -8 | -9 | -A | -B | -C | -D | -E | -F | | |
0- | | | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | • | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ¤ | | 0- |
1- | | ? | ? | ? | ? | ¶ | § | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | | 1- |
2- | | | ! | " | # | $ | % | & | ' | | * | , |
| . | / | | 2- |
3- | | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | : | ; | < | = | > | ? | | 3- |
4- | | @ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | | 4- |
5- | | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | [ | \ | ] | ^ | _ | | 5- |
6- | | ` | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | | 6- |
7- | | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z | | ~ | ¦ | | 7- |
8- | | Ç | ü | é | â | ä | à | å | ç | ê | ë | è | ï | î | ì | Ä | Å | | 8- |
9- | | É | æ | Æ | ô | ö | ò | û | ù | ÿ | Ö | Ü | ¢ | £ | ¥ | P | ƒ | | 9- |
A- | | á | í | ó | ú | ñ | Ñ | ª | º | ¿ | ¬ | ¬ | ½ | ¼ | ¡ | « | » | | A- |
B- | | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | ¦ | + | + | ¦ | ¦ | + | + | + | + | + | | B- |
C- | | + | - | - | + | - | + | ¦ | ¦ | + | + | - | - | ¦ | - | + | - | | C- |
D- | | - | - | - | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | ¦ | _ | ¦ | ¦ | ¯ | | D- |
E- | | a | ß | G | p | S | s | µ | t | F | T | O | d | 8 | f | e | n | | E- |
F- | | = | ± | = | = | ( | ) | ÷ | ˜ | ° | · | · | v | n | ² | ¦ | | | F- |
| | | -0 | -1 | -2 | -3 | -4 | -5 | -6 | -7 | -8 | -9 | -A | -B | -C | -D | -E | -F | | |
Storage media
Officially, the standard storage medium for the original IBM PC model 5150 was a
cassette drive. Technologically obsolete even by 1981 standards, it was seldom used, and few IBM PCs left the factory without a floppy disk drive installed. The 1981 PC had one or two 160 kilobyte 5¼ inch single-sided double-density
floppy disk drives; XTs generally had one double-sided 360 kB drive .
The first IBM PC that included a fixed, non-removable, hard disk was the XT. Hard disks for IBM compatibles soon became available with very large storage capacities. If a hard disk was added that was not compatible with the existing disk controller, a new controller board had to be plugged in; some disks were integrated with their controller in a single expansion board, commonly called a "Hard Card."
In 1984, IBM introduced the 1.2 megabyte dual sided floppy disk along with its AT model. Although often used as backup storage, the high density floppy was not often used for interchangeability. In 1986, IBM introduced the 720 kB double density 3.5" microfloppy disk on its Convertible laptop computer. It introduced the 1.44 MB high density version with the PS/2 line. These disk drives could be added to existing older model PCs. In 1988 IBM introduced a drive for 2.88 MB "DSED" diskettes in its top-of-the-line models; it was an instant failure and is all but forgotten today .
Original Software
All IBM PCs includes a relatively small piece of software stored in
ROM. The original IBM PC 40 kB ROM included 8 kB for power-on self-test and basic input/output system functions plus 32 kB
BASIC in ROM . The ROM BASIC interpreter was the default user interface if no
DOS boot disk was present.
BASICA was distributed on floppy disk and provided a way to run the ROM BASIC under
PC-DOS control.
IBM PC and PS/2 models
The IBM PC range:
| Model name | Introduced | CPU | Features |
|---|
| PC | Aug 1981 | 8088 | Floppy disk system |
| XT | Mar 1983 | 8088 | Slow hard disk |
| XT/370 | Oct 1983 | 8088 | System/370 mainframe emulation |
| 3270 PC | Oct 1983 | 8088 | With 3270 terminal emulation |
| PCjr | Nov 1983 | 8088 | Floppy-based home computer |
| PC Portable | Feb 1984 | 8088 | Floppy-based portable |
| AT | Aug 1984 | 80286 | Medium-speed hard disk |
| Convertible | Apr 1986 | 8088 | Microfloppy laptop portable |
| XT 286 | Sep 1986 | 80286 | Slow hard disk, but zero wait state memory on the motherboard. This 6 MHz machine was actually faster than the 8 MHz ATs because of the zero wait states |
The PS/2 series:
| Model | Introduced | CPU | Features |
|---|
| 25 | August 1987 | 8086 | PC bus |
| 30 | April 1987 | 8086 | PC bus |
| 30 | August 1987 | 80286 | PC bus |
| 50 | April 1987 | 80286 | Micro Channel Architecture bus |
| 50Z | June 1988 | 80286 | Faster Model 50 |
| 55 SX | May 1989 | 80386SX | MCA bus |
| 60 | April 1987 | 80286 | MCA bus |
| 70 | June 1988 | 80386 | Desktop, MCA bus |
| P70 | May 1989 | 80386 | Portable, MCA bus |
| 80 | April 1987 | 80386 | Tower, MCA bus |
IBM PC compatible specifications:
| CPU | Clock
speed
| CPU
bus
width | System
Bus
width | RAM
| Floppy
disk drive | Hard drive
| Operating
system |
|---|
| 8088 | 4.77–9.5 | 16 | 8 | 1 | 5.25", 360 KB
3.5", 720 KB
3.5", 1.44 MB | 10–40 | PC-DOS |
| 8086 | 6–12 | 16 | 20–60 |
| 80286 | 6–25 | 1–8 | 5.25", 360 KB
5.25", 1.2 MB | 20–300 | PC-DOS, OS/2 |
| 80386 | 16–33 | 32 | 32 | 1–16 | 3.5", 720 KB
3.5", 1.44 MB | 40–600 | UNIX |
| 80386SX | 16 |
- Under DOS, RAM is expanded beyond 1 MB with EMS memory boards
- Under DOS, RAM is expanded beyond 1 MB with normal "extended" memory and a memory management program.
Trivia
- Much of the original development team, including Don Estridge, perished on August 2, 1985, during the crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191. As a result of this disaster, IBM and many other companies set limits on the number of employees allowed on a single flight.
See also
References
- Norton, Peter . Inside the IBM PC. Revised and enlarged. New York. Brady. ISBN 0-89303-583-1.
- August 12, 1981 .
- Mueller, Scott Upgrading and Repairing the PCs, Second Edition, Que Books, ISBN 0-88022-856-3
External links
