PC truns 25 years-old this week

The personal computer (PC) sitting on your desk today is a descendant of the one first launched on 12 August, 1981, by IBM.

With an Intel microprocessor, the 8088, and a Microsoft operating system, MS- DOS, no one could have predicted that this machine would secure the multi- billion dollar future of Intel and Microsoft, and that IBM who built the machine would eventually get out of the PC market altogether - last year, 2005, selling its PC business to Chinese manufacturer Lenovo.

Anyway, back in 1981 the PC was created as a business (office) machine, that was going to compete with several such computers already available.

Within a few years it became the standard business computer, with IBM allowing Intel and Microsoft to cooperate with other manufacturers to produce ‘PC Compatibles’, starting with a Compaq PC and the rest is history.

Around the mid-eighties, IBM PC compatibles found their way into homes, as their prices dropped, and that sparked the home computing revolution.

Being able to run the same software at work, school and home resulted in the enivtable conclusion of ending the chances of other computing platforms that still existed in the early nineties like the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and even almost killed the Apple Macintosh; but how that survived is another long story.

Now, looking back, it is believed that businesses thought of personal computers as toys, up until they saw IBM’s “stamp of approval” on a PC. IBM was already a leader in large computing systems (mainframes and mini computers- not so mini actually, they filled up half a room).

So, when IBM produced a powerful but relatively compact desktop system (costing around $5,000) the business world took notice, yet not entirely sure what to make of it. The following years would show the massive productivity gains, and resulting profits to business, that would result from using PC software.

At around that time several software companies like Lotus, Borland, WordStar, WordPerfect led the office applications market. But, as we all know, Microsoft then entered the applications business and crushed them all.

So, gone are those early software players too, as the lasting legacy of the
1981 PC that remains with us today is Intel architecture and Microsoft’s OS.

If you’ve been in computing as long as I have, and you’ve seen it happen over the past two decades, you always wonder ‘What If IBM didn’t work with Intel and Microsoft in 1981? What if someone else created the platform that became the standard?

Too late for that now. The PC has grown to something even beyond IBM’s reputation. Ask a teenager today, do you have an IBM Compatible PC? And he’ll think you’re an idiot! Well, that’s what they’re called, and IBM started it all in 1981.

A quarter of a decade later, there may be some lessons to be learned from the first 25 years of the PCs life.

Will the PC, with its current architecture, still be with us 25 years from now? With all the devices (PDAs, smart phones) we’re seeing and Internet-based systems and applications, it’s difficult to answer that.

We’ll see.

zanasser@gmail.com