The IBM PC 5150 - the world's most influential computer

[@ModernClassic]

Hey guys - one quick clarification about something that's getting a few comments. In the video I say that the PC was 2-4 times faster than its competitors at tasks important to businesses. Keep in mind that I was not comparing clock cycle vs. clock cycle of the CPU alone against only certain other CPU's (I showed more than CPU speed in the chart); I was comparing overall performance in real-world tasks. As we all know even today, there's more to a computer than just its CPU, and the fact that the PC had a very advanced graphics subsystem, support for massive amounts of RAM (for the day) that reduced or eliminated the PC's need to access a disk while within an application, a fast system bus, math co-processor support and a faster floppy and hard drive interface than its competitors, made it much faster overall than those machines at tasks important to businesses (for example, large spreadsheets or relational databases). Of course, that doesn't mean that some of the machines on my list weren't better at certain other tasks - I'm a big Atari 8 bit and Apple II fan, personally (and am an Apple II owner since 1985), and would choose either of those machines to play games on before the early PC. In fact, I actually made that choice - I chose my Apple IIc at a time when the PC AT was already available!

[@Scalibq]

Advanced graphics subsystem? Not at all, the PC was by far the most primitive on the market with its MDA or CGA options. It had memory, FPU and expansion options going for it, but at its base it was quite an inefficient machine.

[@asgerms]

Bohemiq : You are thinking about games. We are talking about serious computing. Try working 40 hours a week in front of an early 80s micro (not a kid playing games for fun), and you will be begging for an MDA with a smooth 350 line display. All other systems used 200 lines, which gets sore on the eyes. Furthermore, allready in 82 most of us switched the MDA to a cheap Hercules card, and now had 720x348 flicker-free graphics. Not until the mac (1984, 512x348) and Atari ST (1985, 640x400) was this rivaled on monochrome. Not even the amiga's could do this; 200 lines or headache inducing interlacing. For colors, try doing 80-columns green text on a magenta background and all early systems but the PC will absolutely vomit. This is due to it's RGB connection. By the time Atari/Amiga sorta caught up, PC's allready had EGA with 16-colors in flickerfree 640x350, which no other system could do. If you were really serious, the PGA adapter gave you 640x480 in 256 colors from a palette of 4096, with GPU acceleration in 1984! For business, it's not about animation and entertainment. It's about having alot of screen real estate and a sharp/clear image presenting your data. The author of the video is correct that the PC was way ahead in this respect; and in many other ways that gamers are oblivious about.

[@Scalibq]

Games? No, I'm a graphics programmer, and I am thinking about the basic technology. Also, you have to be more specific. The high resolution only counts for MDA, which had the downsides of being text-only and monochrome. CGA only had 200-line modes, so was no better in that respect than its competitors. Aside from that, both MDA and CGA were severely limited and slow, compared to the alternatives. Hence I find the characterization of 'very advanced graphics subsystem' to be woefully inaccurate. Comparisons between EGA or PGA versus stock Amiga and Atari ST machines is also completely missing the point, given the huge price difference between the systems, and their intended markets. You would sooner have to compare them against workstation-class machines, and then IBM again is not looking all that spectacular. Besides, other platforms also supported expansions for graphics. Displaying text or simple graphics was basically ALL you could do with CGA. It did not support double-buffering, did not have any kind of raster interrupts, no support for custom character sets, no hardware sprites (not even a simple hardware mouse cursor), no scrolling, no blitting, nothing. All things that were supported on most 8-bit machines, even ones that were orders of magnitude cheaper than the PC. CGA is nothing more than a dumb framebuffer. EGA and VGA are a bit more sophisticated, but still lacked sprites and other features (or had a very limited implementation of them) compared to their contemporaries.

[@asgerms]

See? You go on-and-on about speed, raster interrupts, double buffering, sprites, tiles,....*everything* that has to do with animation and games, and exactly what the PC was *not* about!

[@Scalibq]

No, you are jumping to conclusions, and fail to understand the context. I was responding to the above message, where the OP stated '...the fact that the PC had a very advanced graphics subsystem'. This is what I was responding to. 'What the PC is about' is not the context. Aside from that, you also fail to understand that the things I mention have applications that go well beyond animation and games, and certainly fit professional applications. For example, the PC's poor graphics subsystem also made it trail behind when GUIs and WYSIWYG became mainstream in the mid-80s. As I said, the PC is a very inefficient design, and when you wanted a GUI, you had to do a lot of bruteforce processing on the CPU, where many competitors had much faster, more elegant solutions for showing mouse cursors, drawing lines, moving areas around on the screen, drawing custom fonts etc. Aside from that, there's also of course a professional market where graphics are very important, such as CAD/CAM and computer animation. Again, if the PC really did have a 'very advanced graphics subsystem', it would have supported the various features I had mentioned, and would have been a viable alternative. But the fact is that it didn't, and it wasn't (even though IBM attempted to enter professional graphics markets with the PGC, 8514/A and XGA, it failed horribly everytime, as evidenced by the fact that virtually no software exists that even supports these standards). Because it was exactly what the PC was not about.

[@danielt.3152]

Fresh out of college with a degree in computer science I wrote an application for Estate Planning that analyzed inheritance taxes, multiple strategies, outcomes, and other factors targeted at high net worth customers for a local insurance agent for Mass Mutual, the insurance agent then positioned this application and some extensions to Dunn and Bradstreet. My first paid gig as a programmer and all on a brand new IBM PC which I never had access to a desktop computer, I had to learn the OS and IBM Basic language. Dunn and Bradstreet loved the app and acquired the insurance agent and his company with the estate planning app. I had gas money and something to put on my resume and made my car loan payments.

[@Zanth123]

My Dad worked for IBM starting in the 60s . Started in working on mainframes and in the late 70s was promoted to systems engineer. they gave him a 5150 . He also wrote manuals for them.

[@BobSmith-gh5wj]

My Dad still has his IBM 5100 with the printer that came with it from 1975 - it cost $36,000 and the printer cost about the same. To this day it is still fully functional.

[@paradoxofgodexisting]

Hold on to it and hide it. Dont trust safety deposit boxes, the banks will steal it. Make a time capsule and tell only most trusted people about the location of it.

[@skril733]

My father bought an IBM 5150 when it first came out and we still have it to this day.

[@skril733]

Hell yeah. Although he did update a few thing like getting an EGA card, maxing out the memory, and replacing the monitor with an Amdek Color II.

[@flavortown3781]

You got you probably 20k worth of hardwares worth

[@NaokisRC]

20k? Is this like the 100k priced Space Invaders cabinets? Sure, they have value but no way is it 20k...

[@evetsnitram8866]

This model PC actually inspired Van Halen to name an album after it.

[@sonikpeakstudio6093]

And there's a guitar amp from Peavy called "5150" as well

[@geraldloudermilk5975]

Great video. I worked at IBM Boca from 1984 till 1994. When I started we were making PC's 24/7 you could work as much as you liked. It was a good time.

[@CattoRayTube]

I've watched a few IBM PC retrospectives, and this would have to be the best. Very well presented and paced, with content, asides, and comparisons not found elsewhere.

[@geoffreykeane4072]

William Kulich I agree, I remember the issues in the mid 80s on compatibility and what we had to do to get around it.

[@dtriplett03]

@Adelaine Delabin I agree))👽

[@Clavichordist]

@@geoffreykeane4072 I remember that as well. How many of those clone companies and products from some of the big players disappeared overnight? Eagle Computer, Data General's DG-series, Panasonic, DEC, Wang, and so many others. DEC caught on to the compatibility thing too late, and Wang never got it. Sadly both are gone now due to many reasons but this was among them.

[@vapourmile]

It's good because the bulk of the other retrospectives are made by eternal teenagers who are only looking back at it to bash it.

[@dryan8377]

I agree completely. I lived and worked through all of the years presented. I spent $2500 for a Trash 80 model 3. 48k ram, with dual disk drives.

[@alandouglas8939]

Great video. It brings back very fond memories for me as I was a PC specialist for IBM New Zealand back in the 80's. Although being trained on the PC Jr, New Zealand never released the product to the local market. Hurrah! We, along with Australia and Japan, got the IBM Japan developed PC JX. This was a much better designed version of the PC Jr, although not much better! It didn't last long. I actually received the first ever PC XT into the country and I can remember saying to one of my colleagues: "A 10 MB hard disk! No one will ever fill that up." How wrong was I!

[@TheRealLaughingGravy]

Great video, a really nice presentation. I'm glad you spent a little time praising the PC's keyboard. It's easy to forget now, but at the time, keyboard quality on personal computers varied greatly, and having a keyboard that just "felt right" was a key selling point for me and a lot of other people. The PC's keyboard was a delight to type on (as was the IBM Selectric's, which you also mentioned). It was just so _satisfying._

[@jn1mrgn]

Some systems of the time had so-so keyboards, but it was not unusual to see awful bubble switch stuff. And the disaster that some PET models called a keyboard.

[@kevinray3229]

By far the best made keyboard of the day for a PC.

[@douglasb5046]

I still have my PS2 keyboard. Nothing beats it’s tactile feel!

[@garyclouse4164]

A few historical notes: The design team at Boca Raton initially studied the successful micro computers on the market to co-develop the their marketing strategy along with the product design parameters. the design target was a desktop computer that would appeal as many markets as possible, and their design showed this philosophy At the time the CP/m operating system dominated business computing and a large library of third party software. CP/M ran primarily on inlet 8-bit processors (8080, 8085) and some 8080 compatible chips from Zilog (Z-80). Intel had introduce the 8086 design which was source code compatible with the older 8080 to simplify the porting existing 8-bit software to the 16-bit processor. However, the cost of memory chips would have greatly increased the price so they decided to use the 8088 CPU, an Intel transitional design that was completely machine code compatible with the 8086, but used an 8-bit data path. The PC design team noted that computers in the home and educational markets were expandable, with the most successful computers in the market sector have a large variety of third party hardware, so in a break from IBM's tradition closed business model, they specifications and designs to encourage third-party hardware development, but decided to use copyrighted bios ROMS to provide legal protection against copycat (clone) machines. The idea was to use a propriety OS that would only work after authenticating the bios roms. It's fairly certain that IBM intended on purchasing CP/M86 from digital research, but when they went to make the deal, Digital Research would not agree to IBM's NDA clause in their licensing. However, an IBM executive had learned of the existence of a clone of CPM86 through back channels owned by a small software company calling itself Micro-Soft and a deal was made for a version of the 86-dos operating system with the authentication code to be named PC-DOS Micro-Soft's co-founder, Bill Gates, whose father and grandfather were corporate lawyers took advantage in a huge loophole in contract law and after providing PC-DOS to IBM and renamed and produced a modified version of 86-dos without the authentication code called MS-DOS For the home market, a non disk PC would boot into Microsoft Basic from rom, and rom basic programs could be save and loaded with a standard portable cassette recorder, but there was no way to use the cassette port or even use the cassette basic program after adding a floppy controller. The original base price of the PC did not include a display adapter.For home use the color graphics adapter was offered for use with a tv, and for business a monochrome monitor and the business graphics adapter was offered

[@jerseybob4471]

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. I worked for IBM for 37 years. My first PC was a PC XT running DOS. Then a PC AT running DOS but with green screen mainframe access. Then a PS2/70 and then a PS2/80 and an L40/SX all running OS/2. We finally switched to laptops with Windows. It was quite a ride.

[@pim1234]

When I started working the company got 2 IBM's, now I am almost gonna retire ... this vid gives me good memories ...

[@jamesross3939]

I was 18 in 1981 and that is the year i bought a TRS-80 Color Computer. But I recall reading all about the IBM PC in Byte magazine. My first PC/XT clone was in 1988. Great memories great review.

[@davedumond9268]

A modern classic indeed. My early career experience exposed me to the IBM PC architecture. While employed at NCR 1978-1984 I worked on their PC XT clone as well as a 3270 plug-compatible emulation system. The opportunity was there because IBM couldn't keep up with demand for the products. NCR separated themselves in the PC clone market by using amber text screens and DIN-standard low profile keyboards, which were excellent. I remember purchasing an NCR PC clone before leaving the company in 1984 for the employee price of $1500. Great video, thanks for the memories!

[@shorttimer874]

I really liked amber screens. I got one from Gorilla when I updated my Apple ][ Plus with a 80 column card.

[@pedrob3953]

Funny, NCR and IBM come a long way. Thomas Watson Sr. went to IBM (then CTR) after being fired from NCR. What we know today as "IBM culture" was originally NCR corporate culture brought to IBM by Watson Sr.

[@josephsmith1893]

I am computer enthusiast, and spend so much time looking through the PC Magazine archives in Google Books. All the information you have is just pure gold...

[@JMacQ77]

I worked in the computer lab of my university from 1994 until graduation. We had a 5150 working as the print server/spooler for the whole lab. Somehow, it was able to handle print requests from banks of both Classic and PowerPC Macs, and from Windows computers (probably 60 in total), and I never remember it once crashing or having any kind of mechanical failure. That 5150 was the first computer we'd start up in the lab early in the morning, and the last one that we would shut down at the end of each night. It wasn't even upgraded with a hard drive (and the required higher-wattage PSU). That was the only computer type in the whole lab building that I never remember having run into a problem with. I wish the hardware and software will still made to that standard.

[@ModernClassic]

Yeah, I don't really know of a *desktop* you can buy at this point that's built to the same level of toughness. I do plan on hopefully eventually doing a comparison of the very last standard desktop that IBM made (they still make server kits and such that don't really qualify) with this 5150 where I'll talk about whatever differences I find. I strongly suspect that build quality will be one of them, even back in 2005. Not sure when that video will happen - the particular machine I'm looking for, an IBM-made 8422 A51p, is not very common at all.

[@DOSv622]

Was that a network Novell Netware LAN? My college at the time had really nice Digital Equipment Corporation 486 desktops in most of their computer classrooms and labs and in each room they had an old PC or PC XT with multiple parallel port cards installed with 2 dot matrix printers and a HP LaserJet II or III connected. No hard disk on the PC, just a DOS boot disk, with the Novel Netware client and the novel pserve.exe on it all scripted to do it’s thing on boot via autoexec.bat. A very ingenious way of utilizing old hardware.

[@JMacQ77]

Planned obsolescence seems to be the modern paradigm. There will never be another "5150" level of build quality. Instead, all of us hope that our phones will survive another year. And when they don't, a shiny and new one is presented for our purchase, or lease.

[@JMacQ77]

Yep, we used Netware. The 5150 worked wonderfully as our print spooler. Most of that old hardware rarely crashed, but I had to deliver bad news to many fellow students who experienced "sad Mac" screens, and Microsoft's patented blue screens. "Sorry man, your finals paper is history..." That old IBM tank never did so much as hiccup, at least when I was on duty.

[@psdaengr911]

Netware rocked. Also, I rarely experienced a problem with a PC clone that wasn't caused by Micro Soft. IBM made great keyboards and cases, but had a hard time keeping up with clone makers who didn't care who made the parts as long as they kept getting faster.

[@thethirdcell9616]

I was the Contract Specialist for IBM Corporate Component Procurement and negotiated the IBM PC component contracts from 1980 thru 1984. It was a wild ride with contracts that equal $800 million dollars in todays dollars. I consider that time in my career to be the most satisfying, but also the most taxing!

[@mjordan812]

Memories... I was there for (almost) the whole ride - my first computer was a Mod I Level 2 TRS-80 with 4K of RAM. What IBM brought to the table was legitimacy. What had been a geek's toy, now became a legitimate business machine.

[@TheOriginalRick]

That was why it took a while for the clones to catch on. No one in business would ever get dinged by the bosses for buying an IBM branded computer.

[@rahb1]

"What IBM brought to the table was legitimacy. What had been a geeks toy, now became a legitimate business machine." Only because of the overpriced logo. All of the other options at the time were far better priced for their much better performance and functionality.

[@TheOriginalRick]

@@rahb1 At that time no manager ever got fired by telling the boss, " I just bought us an IBM computer"

[@tarajoe07]

@@rahb1 This machine was well ahead of the competition for business use.

[@i-told-you-sodear1526]

In 1986 I was contract as an electronic design engineer to work for a company called NORAND Corp. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I designed a PC system that was to be used in 7/11 stores as a PC based cashier system. In those early years, IBM published its PC system openly (for 3rd party add-ons). I got a hold of the electronic schematic design of IBM's PC and subsequently copied its schematic into a PC compatible for Norand Corp. The company thought I was brilliant to design the PC system, when I had only secretly copied from IBM.

[@jagardina]

Great video. Thanks for making this. I used an original IBM PC although it had 640K memory, at one of my first jobs in 1984. It was a great era to live through.

[@RobertFHarwood]

I still have my 5100 and 5150 I had software that IBM marketed for me. IBM's Robert Rossi asked me to port to 5150 from System 34, resulting in support for MS DOS since there was a current product for IBM business customers. I could outrun S/34 by closing the display device on the 5100.

[@mr_beezlebub3985]

I wish IBM still made machines for the average consumer. They really did care a lot about build quality, which is something that some other OEMs really should start doing.

[@pim1234]

Started working at a large research institute in 1984...saw all systems from that moment slowly moving in, incl. the IBM Pc, the institute had 2 and 1 of these was in our room at work. This vid brings back so much happy memories ! Tnx

[@michaelcoll433]

I loved the video. Lived through it. My father bought one of the first 5150s. That machine lasted forever with continuous upgrades and repairs. I'd acquire other people's dead machines and take the working from each to make new ones. The only original part, I know is original from my father, is the math co-processor.

[@michaelblair5566]

I had Commodore computers in the 1980's. A VIC-20, a Commodore 64, then a Commodore 128. Then in 1990 I got my first PC, a 80286 12MHz AT clone running MS DOS 5.0.

[@willrsan]

This history is utterly fascinating because my dad had one of the original IBM XT "portable" machines which was my formative computer experience and now I am watching this on a descendant of the original PC. The keyboard I am using came with a NEC server and is obviously a direct clone of the IBM model M keyboard in layout and color. As to the PC I am using - it is running Windows 10 ( descended from MS DOS) has an Intel CPU ( a XEON X5650) has an ASUS ROG motherboard with Intel X58 chipset, all 10 year old tech but still works great - basically a mix and match of components conforming to some loose standard. If I could travel back in time to the late 70s and early 80s I would tell those early computer designers from Commodore, Atari, Apple and whoever that a successful computer has to be open and expandable and upgradeable in order to be successful as I am from the future and have seen what works. The PC lives on!

[@ajax700]

windows NT descends from many things this guy liked (not from ms-dos thank god!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler VMS, some things windows, and many many things unix. Even ms-dos is the copy of a bad copy (qdos), of a simple copy (CP/M), of UNIX. "I would tell those early computer designers from Commodore, Atari, Apple and whoever that a successful computer has to be open and expandable and upgradeable" That is mixing apples with oranges. Great advice, that is how ibm lost the PC market. Among other things. Using commodity components that competitors had not even to copy, just buy, save for the BIOS.

[@MrGTO-ze7vb]

Thanks for this IBM PC History..!! I built the first Color PC at Polo Microsystems in 1983 / Mountain View. You should of seen the IBM engineers and the 2 Steves at Apple come to our COMDEX booth in Vegas and freak out. They put their floppies into the Polo and it ran their graphics programs..!! Zilog Z80 and an Intel 80188 microprocessors running the pc. Bill Gates grabbed one of my prototypes and installed DOS in it in 2 months before the COMDEX show

[@TallshrewFishing]

Speaking as someone who has been involved in IT professionally since the early 80s (and a hobbyist before that), I found your video very interesting. Thanks.

[@calvinhobbes7504]

Excellent research, sir!! My father was a reliability engineer for both the 5150 and 5170 projects at the Boca Raton plant. He had some great stories about things like the hard disk reliability issues on the PC/AT and the behind-the-scenes goings-on with the decision about PC-DOS vs CP/M-86 ... I was a poor junior sailor at the time, so I bought an Apple II+ .... dad jokingly labeled me a "turncoat" for doing so. :)

[@GuardianMisterioso]

Thank you very much for mentioning me in the description. Few people do it on KZbin even if they use other people's material.

[@ModernClassic]

I do try to give credit when I know where something came from. Hopefully I didn't miss any credits in this video.

[@ab9zd73]

Excellent video. The first person in our department at work to get an IBM PC was the department secretary. One of the engineers was having a look at it during the lunch break and a VP saw him and said he would demote any guy he caught using it to secretary. None of the guys in his department had any reason to be typing on a keyboard themselves. It wasn't just the technology changes but the dinosaurs who couldn't adapt who ended up with early retirement parties. My first work PC was an IBM PS/2 - I used a DEC/VAX terminal for years before that. I went from an Atari 800 to an Atari ST to an Acer clone at home.

[@tommartin2360]

Great video. Brings back a lot of memories. This is the computer that drove home the point to me, that a products success is driven by more than a products capabilities. Shortly after the IBM 5020 a few competitors sprung up. One was the Victor 9000. I won't go into any detail, but in just about any metric you would like to use, it was superior to the IBM PC from a technical perspective. And it was targeted at business and ran business software. It failed, and failed hard. I was completely shocked. Later in my carrier I have seen this over and over. The best, most innovative products, are typically at the fringes and they rarely succeed. It was a hard lesson at the time and our company ended up with dozens of expensive boat anchors.

[@ArJuna22]

Well done on this video. It brings back many memories. I owned my first Z80 computer in the late `70s, and became well versed in machine code and basic. I bought an IBM PC in 1982. I was thoroughly absorbed by the IBM PC and spent day and night learning every aspect of it. I went on to buy an an IBM PC/XT in 1984 with a whopping 10MB hard drive. Then a IBM PS/2 Model 80 in 1987 with ALL the options, which totaled more than $12k, and that was at nearly 20% discount as I worked for an IBM reseller. I am currently retired from IBM. I remember all the elements in this video quite well. Still do to this day with the newer incarnations. It was an exciting time for sure. I really miss the old IBM keyboards. My wife loves their keyboards too and almost refused to use anything else. She still complains about it to this day.

[@Nitro2030ce]

Those old IMB keyboards is why I own a mechanical today

[@remijakobsen1848]

Great video. One correction though, IBM never licensed IBM PC DOS from Microsoft. They only payed Microsoft a one time fee for handling this together with payment for some programming languages. After the IBM PC was released in the fall of 1981, they allowed Microsoft to license the OEM version of PC DOS, "MS DOS" to other manufactures making Intel 8086/88 based computers. The reason IBM let Microsoft handle the IBM PC DOS part, is that they had bad experiences in the past with building on something purchased from another company, and had lost several court cases in the past due to complications with doing so. Microsoft also lost a curt case and had to pay SCG a lot more money for 86-DOS, as they hide that IBM were the "real" customer, as the initial price would be much higher then.

[@samshare2146]

I've still got my original IBM 5150 from way back when. Yes, it still works. Yes, I love the clicky keyboard and it is still the gold standard for a keyboard. Yes, I have the original manuals and still have the apps and games from that time. It is not original as there have been upgrades...like a Hercules CGA adapter and a color monitor, but it is still the start of my computer experience.

[@SuperNorstShow]

I would argue that the IBM 5100 was more influential. After all, CERN needs them for their time machine!

[@MrApple256]

I was looking for this kind of comment :D

[@pelgervampireduck]

the organization is here too!. awaiting instructions! el psy kongroo!

[@mebradhen]

Okabe... The phones off, what are you rambling about

[@ez45]

No, that was the 5150. :)

[@thomasandrews9355]

Kudos for the Steins Gate reference.

[@jasonmadinya7759]

This is a very well-researched and well-produced video, definitely going to subscribe!

[@JJSogaard]

Good and very informative video. I am way to young to have experienced the dawn of personal computers, but I of some reason, I just cannot stop wanting to learn more about old computers...

[@jovetj]

Keep it up! Old computers are absolutely fascinating! All I could think of when he talked near the end about those RAM upgrades was the cost... hard to imagine now 1MB of RAM costing $200 USD, and that was still cheaper than in the 80s. Nice music, too!

[@arthurdent8091]

A very nice look back. I was a computer tech in Manhatten in 1985. I can remember the "attitudes" of big blue personnel. I remember the flap about a then almost unheard of design flaw of a TI chip that found its way into actual production, and how we were "coached" on how to talk to customers about it. Oh boy, how the time does fly.

[@trifecta9810]

Thanks for this video. Very interesting. I've been obsessed with Apple history over the years, I almost forgot how the PC ever became so dominant. Better specs, cheaper off the shelf parts, good marketing, good reviews. It's funny how much of the reason the PC was so good even in 1981 still applies to this day 37 years later!!

[@wildbill4476]

Actually while all of the reasons you list contributed to the PC explosion but in addition to a good PC that the PC took off was because it was an IBM and everyone knew IBM made real computers, not toys and gadgets. IBM legitimized the micro in the corporate landscape as well to most people, after all IBM was known for one thing, the made real computers.

[@ConwayBob]

@@wildbill4476 -- And don't forget the IBM-PC's open architecture with all of those expansion slots which many of us filled up with third-party cards of various kinds. My favorite of those was the Turtle Beach Sound Card with its onboard E-Mu Proteus synthesizer.

[@psdaengr911]

Unfortunately, even with all the polish, bells and whistles, the software that is developed for it hasn't improved its reliability or security since 1980's DOS, and it still uses a dead end processor architecture.

[@glhaynes]

I had a lot of different IBM systems growing up (my dad was an IBMer) but the earliest I really spent much time with was an XT. So I learned a lot from this video - black, wide expansion slots? No memory count display during POST? Most people would (rightly) say these were little things but they kinda blew my mind! lol. Thanks for the great video. Really beautiful system you have there, hope you’ve gotten an IBM display for it since.

[@philp3512]

What a wonderful piece documenting the origination of the PC! Bravo!

[@tomstestkitchen]

Excellent presentation, it was like a trip down memory lane for me. I started at IBM in 1980 right at the beginning of the PC era. I was working with the large 3081 and 3090 mainframes. IBM never really embraced the PC because the mainframes where their bread and butter at the time. At some point in my IBM career I used every PC they produced, mostly for testing but also in day to day work. By 1986 our office 3270 dumb terminals had been replace by PC/AT's with 3270 emulation cards.

[@kpanic23]

The Turbo button actually first appeared on so called Turbo XTs using an 8088-2 processor. To be compatible with the original IBM PC, they ran on standard 4.77MHz, but with the press of a button you could switch the clock speed to 8 or even up to 10MHz. The 8088-2 was rated for a max. 10MHz clock speed, while the standard 8088 was only rated for 5MHz. The reason IBM didn't run the system at full 5MHz was, that with 4.77MHz the NTSC color burst frequency could be generated directly from the system clock. You could fine-adjust the burst frequency by slightly adjusting the system clock using the little tuning capacitor near the expansion slots.

[@vwestlife]

The first computer with a turbo button was the Eagle PC Turbo in 1984, with an Intel 8086 running at 8 MHz. Disabling turbo mode didn't actually slow down the clock speed of the CPU; it just added wait states.

[@kpanic23]

VWestlife That's interesting, so turbo/deturbo by other measures actually seems to predate just changing the system clock. The earliest examples of Turbo XTs I personally know really do change the system clock. Measuring with an oscilloscope on the CPU's clock pin, you can see the frequency changing between 4.77 and 8.15 respectively 9.77 MHz. Very intriguing, indeed!

[@vwestlife]

Yes, most "Turbo XT" systems do change the clock speed between 4.77 MHz, 7.16 MHz (50% faster), and 9.54 MHz (twice as fast).

[@kpanic23]

I guess the problem on an 8086-based system is, that even with 4.77MHz the sheer fact that the data bus is 16bit causes some software to run too fast. So adding waitstates on memory access to reduce the transfer speed to the level of the 8088's 8bit transfers seems like the perfect choice.

[@briantw]

That sounds interesting. How did they derive the 3.579545 MHz NTSC clock from the 4.77 MHz CPU clock?

[@armstronglance]

Very good historic presentation!! Sent me back down memory lane. I used that 1st IBM at work ages ago! Bought my parents one too. My old IBM doesn’t work anymore, but my Apple II’s still do!! So do all my Atari’s and old windows PC’s. (Started pgm’ing on an IBM mainframe in 71) ***Ive used almost all the computers in this video. If you have one with ICs in sockets that isn’t starting up correctly, might try pulling those ICs and use a red eraser to clean the leads.***

[@Esth.1]

When you need more LGR and 8 bit guy, and find this channel ❤

[@althejazzman]

This was my first computer back in about 1990, and it was given to my Dad for free! I had no idea it was this model, but I recognise the case, the floppy drive design, the keyboard the monitor. What did we use it for? Games of course, even in CGA mode. It was years later that I finally experienced the same games in SVGA graphics and Soundblaster sound.

[@EmberwolfXR]

I find this so fascinating, though I was not alive I love how they look like a 80's sify machine.

[@carlmelville]

Excellent. Well document and well written. I began my career as the IBM PC was being launched. Thanks for one of the best documentary pieces I've seen on this subject.

[@kenneth6731]

When I was a kid in school, our teacher was a nerd (thank God) we had access to an IBM, Apple II, TI 99 4/A and a Sinclair ZX81. Everyone fought over the TI.

[@insoft_uk]

Kenneth bet Sinclair ZX81 gathered a lot of dust.

[@sawfiler1958]

That was my first computer, the TI994A.

[@tomyamartino]

I worked on a 286 PC! Really cool video, thanks for the memories! Also, I remember the keyboard was so good I kept it as I moved on to other (non-IBM) computers, until a new type of plug came along and I had to say goodbye. I remember being really disappointed. This video triggered that memory 100%! Best keyboard ever.

[@douglasb5046]

I still have my M keyboard and use a USB connector for compatibility with my current Windows 10 computer

[@RANDALLOLOGY]

That was a very informative history lesson. Thanks for sharing. I've got some of those old IBM computers in the basement that I just never had the heart to get rid of.

[@dubiouslycrisp]

I got rid of some old computers. A decade later, I regretted it.

[@cyclenut]

In the late 60s through the 70s sci-fi computers were wild. In 83 I bought my first programming book 8088/86 instructions. In 84 Orange Park FL had a IBM store. They would let me set and use any display computer and even open boxed software for me to learn to use. In 87 Miami, FL the IBM store did the same. But also helped me to be the IBM service man for Miami and Fort Lauderdale FL. IBM techs taught me how to install hardware and repair many types of computers used back then. IBM stores also gave me many of the IBM books. Sadly I no longer have them. I had a IBM PC/XT but it was stolen.

[@LincolnRon]

2:39 The US Air Force was still using those in the 1980s. I was trained to use the Sperry UNIVAC when I was in Suppl in the USAF in the early to mid-1980s. (I was in the US Army from the mid-1980s to 1990.)

[@vincentforonda7381]

fiction

[@stevepaulsson8266]

I took delivery of what I was told was the first PC sold in Canada, in October 1981. It cost $3,000, had 64k of RAM and two 5 1/4" floppy disks. Hard drives didn't come along until the PC-XT, in 1983 as I recall. It was the first in Canada because I was using a CGA monitor; everyone else ordered them with IBM's monochrome monitor, which was held up pending regulatory approval. I used it to play and write primitive games, and secondarily as a word processor, with a dot-matrix printer. How far we have come. The best thing about the keyboard, or rather the architecture, was that it was totally programmable. Meaning that the OS can make that annoying caps lock key act like a regular shift key (hint to Microsoft).

[@ElroyMcDuff]

Ah, Flight Simulator - I loved that game! I started out with Adventure on the PC and Flight Sim was just mind blowing. Thanks for the history lesson!

[@cosmicraysshotsintothelight]

Not remember NetHack? That was character based. MS Flight Simulator was the top selling software (most sales) in the world for a number of years.

[@jamesnielsen3095]

I built my own clones even as I was a "registered consultant" with IBM. The components from Taiwan were sooooo cost effective and superior in performance I was all but forced to deploy with those parts. IBM did move too slow with new devices. Great show! I deployed database networks using "clipper" on "clones" and PC-NET. Sadly, a co-founder of Ashton-Tate, ("dbase") died prematurely at his desk, (age 41).

[@noiricha]

It was really the software revolution that fueled this hardware revolution. The fact that anybody could learn to program in Fortran - Basic - Pascal, and Cobol opened up the world of computing.

[@rogermwilcox]

I don't think there was a single soul who programed in COBOL on the IBM PC. Yes, I say that despite the existence of Microsoft COBOL. The only reason anybody used COBOL at the time is because ancient IBM 360/370 mainframe software was often written in COBOL and had to be maintained.

[@francishunt562]

@@rogermwilcox COBOL is still used extensively worldwide, which says a lot about it's original design and longevity.

[@CarlosTorresCali]

Muchas gracias por el video. Fui un usuario feliz de Tandy 1.000 SX y ahora en 2024 tuve la suerte de poder comprar un IBM PC XT y un MAC Plus ambos en excelente estado. La historia de los Computadores y sus protagonistas es Increíble y muy Hermosa! Saludos desde Cali Colombia ❤😁

[@alexandermirdzveli3200]

The best IBM PC story ever. Thank you!

[@donbenson5292]

Ha. I worked on all of them. 5100 Began with cassette tape and switch for APL or Basic. The keyboard click was made by what is called fly plate. Then with software such as pc support could be used as a work station for twinax attached as an intelligent workstation. Very good video, from a former IBM Systems Engineer.

[@jubsy]

Great video! I just picked up a full-kit 5150 on Craigslist a few weeks ago.

[@vincentaurelius2390]

Really well written history of the PC. Best I've come across on KZbin.

[@hamobu]

I think that Lotus 123 spreadsheet was also a huge driver of sales for PCs

[@daryllarsen8858]

Nicely told. I got my first computer in 1980 which triggered a keen interest in the industry so I watched all of these developments as they were happening. This was a nice trip down memory lane!

[@RickOShay]

Excellent video - brings back great memories! Thanks.

[@charles-y2z6c]

Great video, brings back lots of memories. In 1982 i was converting Apple II+ business apps in BASIC to IBM PC. The software company i worked for got a pre release model to convert all our apple software.

[@MattHalpain]

I love this stuff ! I gobble it up. I was born in the 70's.

[@lumberjackimok]

Great presentation! I bought an IBM 5150 in 1982/1983. It had 2-640k floppy disk drives, 640K RAM, CGA board, and an IBM color monitor. It cost $5000.00! I also had a 16-pin Toshiba printer that had better type quality than your run of the mill 9-pin printer.

[@ToyTainment]

Excellent video. Very interesting. Earned a subscription. Kudos.

[@FlyingwithStan]

Thank you! Awesome video!!! I started my Programming career in 1981, so I worked through all of this stuff. I had a VIC-20, then a PCjr at home. Paid $700 for a 20MB (yes, 20 Megabytes) hard disk that was the size of a small toaster. Still have all that stuff.

[@iaobtc]

8:49 "Intel... fast and cheap" Hard to imagine

[@theforerunnerreclaimer]

Until 2017 it was true, and now they are recovering

[@christiangibson1120]

Back in 1974 as a young software engineer I switched jobs from Philips in the Netherlands to the University of Leiden, Centraal Rekeninstituut. Shortly after joining the CRI I was allowed to take home our first acquisition to try it out. I didn't realize that this was historical! It was an IBM 5120 portable computer (programmable in Basic). It was a real PC - and probably the first PC in the world, coming as it did around 6 years before the famous IBM PC which launched in August 1981...

[@jovetj]

0:32 Wow, I still have some of those books! (The manuals on the desk in front of him...)

[@rlj151]

Seeing that mainframe room took me back. Had a job in the early 90's for a company that did computer mapping. Had an IBM mainframe (don't remember the model number), dual tape drives and 3 hard drives using the HPO/CMS Express System on the networked PS2's.

[@esepelisa]

Very good video. Thanks!

[@JamesMostowski]

Thanks for an interesting video. I was fortunate to work for a company that bought me a 5150 in '81 after I transitioned them to an IBM Mini for accounting and record keeping. An XT and AT followed (along with a PS/2 Model 25 which my kids enjoyed).

[@jacobhotaling8959]

holy crap those keyboards are some of the best built keyboards that ever existed that were mass produced

[@richardfabish607]

I still have a old IBM keyboard, with two PS/2 style connectors (one for the keyboard, and one for the TrackPoint). I use it as an external keyboard for my Lenovo ThinkPad. All I needed to do that was to get a PS/2 to USB adapter. IBM keyboards have always been the best.

[@BlackTomorrowMusic]

Glad you mentioned the PC jr. I had one of these as a kid and used it until about the mid 90s.

[@georgemaragos2378]

Hi All, Wow pretty good summary, and the same way that i saw it happen. I find the IBM PC - XT - AT has a similar success when you compare it to they 60's and early 70's muscle cars, ie they were a great improvement on what was available at the time, and very cost effective, however as the world progressed, many people did not want to let go, many businesses who "took a risk or invested big $$$ " in say a XT class machine did not want to get rid of it 2 to 3 years late, if it not a car or a rental / lease set up, plus the software is pricey, i should go find the wordstar / lotus 123 pricing , but whatever t 3as it was pricey The other reason for success, is that if you had a IBM PC , you had a standard and a floppy with a program or a saved file would work on any other IBM PC, whereas if you had a apple it has to be the same class eg Apple or MAC, same with commodore and all the others. For me the benefit was you could use a program at work and finish it at home, or write a letter at home, and take the floppy to work and print it out on a dot matrix or daisy wheel printer, does this sound sill in 2018 - Yes but in 80's and 90's it was a fact and a serious issue I found 640k and EGA to be sweet spot - pretty much limitless, as for processor power, sure 4.0 mhz is tiny compared to today, but that is all the software required, it worked, using a 80286 8m or 12m just made things faster ( and speed sensitive games unplayable until they designed a clock speed test and a delay in cpu clicks to compensate) The only thing i did not like about my XT and AT was the bare bones cards, in XT i paid for a adlib, then a clock card, then a IO card, then a hard drive controller I think the AT had built in clock and base I/O for serial and parallel but a combo card for I/O floppy / IDE but that could be my 386/486's, everything took up a slot and you run out of slot fast and IRQ's The clones is like the star wars movie ( Attack Of The Clones ) it bought across competition, innovation and massive price drop - pick a number almost 50% Good to see, how about a follow up on general 386/486 growth in business and homes Regards George

[@pelgervampireduck]

not only you could bring the floppy to print a file at home, you knew you could use it on any other PC computer, and if you got a new model like a 286 or a 386, you still could use it. the advantages PCs have over other computers are the backwards compatibility and being an universal standard.

[@HartmutWSager]

You mention running out of IRQ's (along with card slots). See my comment that I'm posting right now at the "main level" (not replies) on this topic.

[@mediamattersismycockholste562]

I sent my Dad a link to this, he was at IBM for 35 years as one of those suited technicians, he used to have PC's and those DOS books all over his office back in the 80's. I can barely remember his first office in 78-79', but it was nothing but typewriters, and then all of a sudden, boom! Computers! We also got a PCjr, and I used it for Flight Simulator more than anything. I wish I had appreciated the technology more at the time. I later worked for Dell myself, but eventually went into small business in a different field. I hope Dad gets a kick out of this video.

[@ValuableFather]

Very well done videos. Thanks for the content.

[@YxBaconx]

Wow, what a comprehensive review! I was most surprised at how much better the IBM PC was than everything else available in 1981. The BBC micro in 1982 gave 80 columns and RGB graphics as well as a teletext display but the 6502 was a write-off for business really only having a 64K address space

[@charliebirkner8729]

You sound like a mix of Anthony Kuhn and Ira Flatow :-) (a good thing). You could fill in for either. :) Great teaching video :) Some would argue that Byte's keyboard comment is still true today. (wasn't it odd layout to *resemble* the Selectric?) I remember some years back they were trying to buy the m back from the general public, around $75 apiece. I say this because I was working for a department that only months (weeks?) before I learned of this, I was responsible for disposing of hundreds of these, as we made room for *gasp* Compaq pentiums... BTW it's also technically "Incorrect" to say PC ("Personal Computer") to only mean "IBM/x86" compatible, but people do that too. LONG LIVE KING'S QUEST! lol

[@kenny553]

Nice video. I used my IBM PS/2 keyboard, bought in 1987, until about 2014. It was indestructible.

[@iaobtc]

16:30 "IBM still underestimated demand" More cynically, this could be seen as the birth of artificial scarcity :P

[@MarkHyde]

Excellent and balanced discussion of the history and legacy of the IBM-PC - really love it's comprehensive coverage and editing :)

[@laughingalien]

Brilliant. Thank you, sir.

[@tech132]

I worked for IBM from 1981 to 1992. During this time I worked on the IBM PC AT motherboard for 3 years at the IBM PCB factory in Charlotte, NC. The IBM factory in Charlotte, NC was closed years ago, but I have fond memories of what we did there. In 3 years I will be able to start collecting my IBM retirement pay and am looking forward to it and reminiscing of the greatness that once was!

[@lfla0179]

My first real PC was an IBM. I needed to replace a hard drive on it, a Pentium 100MHz Aptiva PS/2 . 18 pages of manual (with pictures!) and half a dozen circuit boards later (a riser card, a tv tuner, a soundboard, a modem, a network card, and a couple more) I had it apart in my desk. 48 screws came out of it just to get to the HDD. My mom looked at my room, boards sprawled everywhere, asks "will you be able to put it back together?" To what I replied "thick book over there is a manual, mom". Then it dawned on me, any 16-year old could take it apart, because I WAS THAT 16 year old. I put it back together with just 16 screws, and indeed, it was built like a tank, it could take some serious Richter Scale shaking to tear it apart, even with just 2 screws bolting each thing down. And it worked flawlessly, after a couple floppy disk boots to flash the BIOS for the new HDD compatibility. Such a tremendous legacy by IBM: DOCUMENTATION, STANDARDS. Today you can buy PC parts anywhere, and they will just work if you plug them together.

[@psdaengr911]

My first "real" PC was a 286 machine built by Olivertti, marketed by ATT. It was every bit as good in construction quality as IBM's XT, and the documentation was more than adequate for me to learn DOS and start a +30 year career in IT. The only software company whose documentation ever came close to the quality of ATT or IBMs hardware docs was Novell.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Very nice video! Clear and well-paced, great video quality. Thanks for doing this!

[@hangwanimokoena933]

The operating system seems very interesting of its time Finding interesting programs to run on a PC/XT isn't too hard, however most libraries don't post up the memory requirements or display requirements. So for those of us with 256Kb RAM, twin floppies and an original IBM MDA - what is there that isn't painful to use? Interested in good alternatives to WordStar (which I have but am not fond of to be honest), maybe a spreedsheet program, and a few games. Most of the software I'm familiar with seems to be 1987-1993

[@drivers99]

The standard word processor would be WordPerfect. It has a great feature called “reveal codes” so you could see why the text was being formatted a certain way and fix it. Something that Microsoft Word really needs. For spreadsheets there is Lotus 1-2-3.

[@ian_b]

As someone who lived through the whole revolution from Pong systems first appearing (my first computer was a ZX81) I think many people today probably underestimate how much the IBM PC felt like a professional computer compared to all the other appliance style machines in their plastic boxes and how important that was psychologically. Nowadays we are happy with all kinds of form factors including SBCs, but the "built like a tank" PC and its keyboard made one feel that one was in the big league now, even if other machines had more features in terms of graphics and sound etc. I think that had a big effect on its success.

[@Sorax777]

In those years PC's (microcomputers were called back then) had been seen for many people like toys. If You look at any review of machines like vic-20, apple II, TRS-80 and so on, You will see their main programs were games. When people looked at the IBM PC, they saw something like: "I.B.M. is a serious company, They don't make toys. Let's take a look". And when they look that the IBM PC programs were productivity applications like Lotus 123 many saw the microcomputer is coming to age. And that's people, was the Real Revolution.

[@daishi5571]

It's just a real pity that a better platform wasn't chosen.

[@Photologistic]

That was sheer idiocy and herd mentality.

[@daishi5571]

The problem was you had individual companies (Atari, TRS, Commodore......) who all advertised for "their" platform versus 100s of companies all advertising for "IBM Compatible" against that onslaught of advertising it's a wonder companies like Atari and Commodore lasted as long as they did (obviously having a superior platform helped)

[@624radicalham]

Sorax777 You are incorrect. Commodore's advertising reflected heavily that their computer was for productivity. Spreadsheets, Taxes, Accounting, programs like Quick Brown Fox for word processing, and literally a hundred more. Not to mention online connectivity was also sold hard showcasing programs like Dow Jones News Retrieval service and Compuserve. Sure the kids liked the games, but the marketing showed ALL of its capabilities.

[@ConwayBob]

What sold me on the IBM-style PC was its open architecture. The IBM machines were too pricey for my impoverished budget, though, so my first IBM-architecture machine was manufactured by Heathkit in St. Joseph, Michigan and assembled by me at home. This involved lots and lots of soldering. It was essentially an XT clone but had the interesting feature of not having a proper "motherboard" but rather a backplane that supported a CPU card, a memory card, a floppy disk controller card, an I/O card that incorporated an RS232 serial interface and a parallel printer port, and a color video card -- with a couple of empty slots left over! I soon replaced one of the twin floppy drives with a hard drive -- a whopping 32 megabytes. Ah, the good ol' days. I finally recycled that old beast a few years ago, with some regret.

[@williamjones7163]

I went back to college in 1986. We had a computer lab that had 25 IBM AT Computers. The lab was open 24/7 and you had to sign up to use the machines and Bring Your Own Software. I remember using Lotus 123. But as I refer to it as Lotus 12. It hadn't quite made it to 123. 5 1/4 floppy drives. Oh those were the days!

[@armandCodes]

Amazing job thank you so much

[@henrythegreatamerican8136]

Interesting video. I grew up in the Boca Raton area. As a kid I remember my mother driving us through the IBM campus of buildings. At the time, everyone thought the area would become the Silicon Valley of the east coast.

[@karlbergen6826]

Quite an interesting video. I lived through a lot of that history.

[@AliasUndercover]

I didn't realize how much I missed seeing those old machines until you showed that shot of that monochrome screen on a desk. Made me want to play PCTREK.

[@bobreesjr9501]

I remember setting the DIP switches on these...