From the rumors of IBM's entry into the PC market to a proliferation of ever-more-powerful desktop systems today. Here's the gossip from
July 1981
:
IBM's Personal Computer
by Chris Morgan, Editor in Chief
The year 1981 will be important in the history of personal computing for two reasons: the "invasion" of Japanese personal computers, and the entry of maj
or computer companies such as IBM into the market. Rumors abound about personal computers to come from giants such as Digital Equipment Corporation and the General Electric Company.
But there is no contest.
IBM's new personal computer (most likely to be officially announced this month) is far and away the media star, not because of its features, but because it exists at all. When the number eight company on the Fortune 500 list enters our field, that is news. And when you take a close look at the computer's design, that is news, too. Although the complete description of the computer is still subject to conjecture, sources close to IBM have given me an intriguing glimpse of the machine.
System Details
Seemingly contradictory rumors about IBM have raced along the personal computer grapevine for several months now. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that IBM has had not one but two projects going on simultaneously to develop a personal computer - one in Japan, the other
in the United States. The Japanese project (code-named "Go") was jointly sponsored by IBM and Matsushita. The culmination of the project was to have been a series of personal computers produced in Japan bearing the IBM logo. That project now appears to have been either scrapped or indefinitely delayed.
That leaves us with the American design. The computer (code-named "Chess") looks like IBM's low-cost ASCII terminal, but with a few inches of extra height to accommodate two double-density, double-sided 5-inch floppy disk drives immediately beneath the black-and-white video display (with 640 by 400 resolution). The keyboard, designed as a separate module, has received high marks from people who have tested it. Internally, the computer uses an Intel 8088 microprocessor (a 16-bit processor with an 8-bit data bus) and an "IBM" bus. There are five slots on the motherboard - a la Apple II- to accommodate additional interface, memory, and peripheral boards.
The machine will probably be available in a low-c
ost version with entrylevel BASIC in ROM and with program storage and retrieval via cassette recorder (the latter will be a separate module rather than built in). The more expensive version will have disk BASIC and a CP/M-like DOS (disk operating system) to be called, simply, "IBM Personal Computer DOS." Color will also be available in at least two modes: four out of a possible eight colors with 640 by 200 resolution, and eight colors with 320 by 200 resolution. A 6-megabyte Winchester drive (manufactured by Tandon Magnetics) will eventually be available for the machine. IBM has signed agreements with Sears Roebuck and Co and Computerland to market the new machine; J C Penney is reportedly interested, too.
The price? That's a difficult question, but the more expensive version will probably retail in the $3000 to $4000 range. Pricing for the stripped-down version is harder to estimate.
To my mind, the new IBM computer is aimed squarely at the low-end word processing market. It will certainly give mac
hines like the Apple III a run for their money.
The influence of a personal computer made by a company whose name has literally come to mean "computer" to most of the world is hard to contemplate. Its design is a mixture of the conventionally safe (some would say reactionary) coupled with a bit of daring-do (the 8088 holds up the possibility of further 16-bit development).
On the whole I am heartened by the news of IBM's computer. Some factions in our industry have looked upon IBM as the "enemy," the company that gave rise to the mainframe mentality and the coterie of high priests the computer operators who ran the old behemoths and who formed the only link between the lowly user and the all-powerful computer. Elements of this syndrome are unfortunately still in evidence today. Yet where would we be in the personal computer world if IBM had not sunk millions of dollars into the development of such now commonplace inventions as the floppy disk? Besides, it may not be that easy for IBM to gain wide ac
ceptance for its new computer. Competition is growing from all sides. Last year, for example, Fujitsu outsold IBM in the mainframe market in Japan. It is inconceivable that other American computer companies such as Xerox, Data General, Honeywell, and the like will remain on the sidelines for long. This competition can only further the state of the art. And today's successful microcomputer companies will most certainly not fold up and die in the presence of the giants. Good large companies don't always supplant good small companies. As an example from another field, many small specialty book publishing companies are flourishing today in the midst of a general publishing recession. Why? Low overhead, flexibility, unconventional solutions to problems, attention to customer service -- the list goes on.
It would be burying my head in silicon, however, to deny the enormous marketing potential of IBM. But that's all right. I want to see personal computing take a giant step. I liked the recent jocular warning fr
om Intel's Stan Masor to "never trust a computer you can't lift." Perhaps the warning's unnecessary: the way things are going, small computers may soon be the only game in town.
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