The IBM PC: Was it really only 33 years ago?

Summary: It might seem to some that the IBM PC was invented aeons ago, but for me it seems like happened only yesterday and my, it was exciting.

By Colin Barker | August 12, 2014 -- 14:09 GM

Trying to re-create some of the excitement of an event that happened 33 years ago is a challenge for anyone but a good place to start is with the bald facts. On the 12 August 1981, IBM, at that time the largest computer company in the world, launched the IBM PC.

I would like to say that I was there to witness it, but I wasn't. Like the rest of Europe, sitting in the UK I had to wait for just under a year and a half, Januray 1983, for the official European launch.

That launch I remember well, not least because the it took place at the Which Computer? Show in London. I had a ringside seat because was a reporter on the magazine of the same name. By all accounts there had been a lot of people at the US launch, but as I remember it, the UK/European launch was, almost literally, mobbed. The room heaved with people who wanted to see, touch, hear, even smell, IBM's latest offering.

http://www.zdnet.com/the-ibm-pc-was-it-really-only-33-years-ago-which 7000032542/
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The IBM PC was considered a late-comer to the PC world - the Commodore Pet, Tandy-Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I and Apple II (there never was an Apple I) had all been introduced in 1977 and the Radio Hobbyist Enthuiast Crowd pre-dated even these early machines with the KIM I which first came to market in 1976.

Scuttle-But had it that Big Blue would not jump on the PC Bandwagon until they felt there was enough profit to be made. These early machines, running a variety of Applications for business such as VisiCalc, Dbase II and WordStar proved that this market existed.  Additionally, the CPM Operating System made portability between machines a reality and add on cards allowed the 6502-based machines to run these 8086-8 based operating system with ease.

The rest, as the say, is History.

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IBM’s New Cybersecurity Plan: Find Bad Guys Before They Steal

• By
 
• SPENCER E. ANTE
 
• CONNECT

Bloomberg News

Protecting a company from data theft traditionally involves setting up a secure perimeter. But with computer crime growing in recent years, International Business MachinesIBM -0.77% has a new approach: spotting threats before the crown jewels are stolen.

On Monday, IBM announced a new security product that it says uses data mining and “behavioral analytics” to keep out hackers.

Antivirus software generally looks for “signatures,” or code belonging to known viruses or other malicious software. One problem with this approach is that it is hard to keep ahead of all the new viruses getting cooked up. Symantec, which invented commercial antivirus software a quarter-century ago, now says such tactics are doomed to fail.

http://goo.gl/hwWt9n

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IBM Wins Most U.S. Patents for 21st Year in a Row

By Alex Barinka

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) amassed more U.S. patents than any other company for the 21st straight year, helped by its push into big-data services, which glean insights by mining large quantities of information.

IBM’s 6,809 patents in 2013 scored an annual record, the company said today in a statement. With inventors from 41 countries, more than 31 percent of the patents came from overseas. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Tokyo-based Canon Inc. (7751)ranked second and third. While computer-related patents can take almost three years to process, the annual list shows where companies are seeking growth opportunities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-14/ibm-wins-most-u-s-patents-for-21st-year-in-a-row.html