Retro Friday: The IBM PC Turns 30

Today is August 12, 2011. On August 12, 1981 the IBM PC was first introduced to market. The model number of that particular unit was the 5150.

Before continuing, this is the best video I know of concerning Ye Olde 5150, and it’s darn good. It’s funny, it’s informative and, amazingly, it’s not boring at all:

I dare anyone to find a better video on the 5150.

The 5150′s specs included a 4.77MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor, 16 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 256 or 640 with an add-on board) and came equipped with one or two 160k floppy diskette drives, depending on what you ordered. Also in the mix was an optional IBM monitor. All this back in ’81 could be yours for the low-low price of around $3,000 – in 1981. To put that in perspective, a brand new Ford Mustang in that year was about $6,500.

The video above pretty much covers anything I could say about the 5150, save for the lack of impact it had on the market.

I was 6 years old in 1981, so I obviously have absolutely zero first-hand experience with the PC market in those days – but from the reading up I’ve done, I can say this:

The 5150 was not an overnight success. Not by a long shot. The PC is something that became attractive over time. While the PC was as open as you could get for architecture, the proprietary computers were the big sellers of the era, as in Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari XL/XE and the like. When all the dust settled and the proprietary home computers fell out of favor with the masses, the PC was right there to take its place and did so easily.

The PC has endured for as long as it has due to its open nature. It is still the most hackable collection of electronics you could ever use, and we’re all glad IBM brought it to the masses.

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jdeb
I have one but mine is yellow.

Rich
…as are most that exist today. You can however bleach the plastic to bring back its original ‘putty’ color. Details here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=37808

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S6TH5HI5U6EUNLSGQQGAQEKAYQ Steve
The pre release 5150 did not have a cooling fan in the power supply. They overheated. I ran a BBS for a few years using a 5150 connected to a expansion unit the same size of the 5150. I still have the 5150 in my garage. V20 CPU, 8087, 640kb, VGA adapter, 1.2mb floppy and 1.44 diskette, 30mb RLL hard drive. There also were ways to get 1mb of RAM into these puppies with a set of hacked drivers.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_S6TH5HI5U6EUNLSGQQGAQEKAYQ Steve
I once hacked a 5150 case to hold an early Intel Pentium motherboard. All it took was a little dremel work on the drive bays.
http://www.diy-computer-repair.com Monte
No one is saying how heavy those thing were. I worked for a computer rental compay for over ten years started in 1987. The last 5150 or even the IBM PC XT I remember working on was in 1994, they were that good.
Compare that with current computers other than the case how many people have a 10+ year old computer that still works and they use it daily? (Besides me?)