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.
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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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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