Five Things to Remember About IBM's First PC

So the IBM PC is 30 years old. So what? I was a newspaper reporter in 1981 when IBM trotted out its first PC. I remember how it created a newsroom buzz and how deadly serious it looked next to the snappy-looking Atari, Commodore and Radio Shack/Tandy computers of the day. Never mind the now-laughably slow processing speed of that first PC. It was plenty fast for the time.

The best way to compare that original 1981 IBM 5150 PC to today's machines is not to talk about what it could do, but to fondly recall the things it couldn't. Many of the little things we take for granted today were not even on the drawing board in 1981. That device that started out as a bland, beige, boxy business tool for geeks is now a cornerstone of our daily lives.

Connection to Nowhere
First of all, the 1981 IBM PC connected you to nothing. It was a standalone computing box that sat on your desk. Whatever you did at the keyboard was between you and the PC--no one else knew what you were doing. If you wanted to share something with someone you waved him over and let him look over your shoulder. If you were ambitious, you copied a file onto a floppy disk (remember those?) and walked it over to the recipient--a process referred to as "the sneakernet."

It had no modem or network card, which was fine in 1981 since very few people knew what the heck email was. If you needed to send a message to your entire office you cleared your throat and shouted. The Internet as we know it today was hardly a twinkle in the eyes of its fathers.

Aside from trashing an occasional floppy, the most dangerous thing a 1981 PC could do to you was give you a virus. No, not a computer virus--a real one--but only if the previous user neglected to wash his hands.

Hostile Desktop Takeover
Unless you were a big shot with a really big desk, the IBM PC didn't share your desk--it took it over. Take a look at the "footprint" of that 1981 IBM PC: The system unit was 20 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 5.5 inches high. The monochrome monitor added 11 inches in height. The system unit weighed in at 25 pounds when configured with one diskette drive.

The keyboard was huge too. It was 20 inches wide to match the system unit and 8 inches deep. It was also one of the most comfortable and responsive keyboards ever made. Yes, it was loud and clacky, but it was reliable.

Couldn't See a Thing
When matched with the right software, even that first PC could generate nice-looking business letters and resumes. You could even design an eye-catching restaurant menu or bulletin board poster. Trouble is, you never knew what you had created until you printed it out.

Early version of Wordstar word processor

The monochrome monitor couldn't show much in the way of character formatting, much less high-resolution graphics or photos. What it could show were arcane codes and squiggles to indicate where the formatting changed. The days of WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) desktop publishing applications were years off.

No Mouse in the House
Unplug your computer's mouse or ignore the touch pad and get back to work. See how much extra finger time those arrow keys get? That's how we interfaced with PCs in the 1980s--one space at a time. No expressing from one end of the screen to another with a single click. Now try to use your web browser without a mouse for a few minutes. Yeah, that's the definition of torture, isn't it?

Help Isn't on the Way
When the IBM PC warmed up and was ready for work, it greeted you not with a friendly, colorful desktop full of icons, but with a mostly blank screen and an "A>" prompt. (The "C>" prompt arrived later with hard disks).


What you typed in after the prompt was up to you because the PC wasn't going to help you. At that point it was time to ask a friend, take a class, or at least grab a software or system manual to see what you should type in. How long has it been since you typed in "dir" to find out what was on a floppy disk?

The 1981 PC was a game-changer, but not for the general public. They were still trying to master the new-fangled bank ATMs. It took years before many PCs made their way into dens, kitchens and bedrooms.

There's lots more the 1981 PC couldn't do--but I'm drawing a blank at the moment, so feel free to chime in.

Text Copyright 2011 Robert S. Anthony, Stadium Circle Features
IBM PC photo courtesy of Ruben de Rijcke via Wikipedia
Wordstar screen shot courtesy of RaviC  via Wikipedia
IBM keyboard image courtesy of Mewtu via Wikipedia
Command prompt image courtesy of Microsoft Corp.

So Was I Right? Year 2000 Predictions for the Future of the PC

In 1999, as the high-tech world prepared for the big bite of the Year 2000 computer bug which never really chomped down, I wrote a newspaper column on how far the PC had come since IBM showed off its first model in 1981.

While lots of things have changed since this column was written on Dec. 29, 1999, one line still rings true: "The most important PC improvements may have been the ones that made life simpler."

And it looks like one prediction, especially for those of you reading this on your cell phone or iPod, clearly came true: "Where will the PC go in the next ten years? Probably into your pocket."

What hardware were you using in 2000 and (*gasp!*) are you still using any of it now? My 1995-vintage HP DeskJet 855C inkjet printer is still humming with the aid of a parallel port-to-USB adapter.

Where will we be in the coming decades? I hope one of you will come by the old folks home to tell me.

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The Paper PC

By Robert S. Anthony

Stadium Circle Features

The PC in 2000: Where Do We Go From Here?

     It has been said that if the history of the Earth were compressed into a 24-hour video, humans wouldn't appear until the last three seconds. Imagine how hard you'd have to watch to detect the short history of the personal computer.

     As thousands of office workers spend the New Year's weekend basking in the glow of computer screens as they watch for ``Year 2000'' problems, it's a good time to take a quick look back at how far personal computing has come since IBM trotted out its first PC in 1981.

     In less than 20 years the PC has evolved from a text-only, limited-purpose office device into a machine that can handle multimedia communication as easily as it can process words.

     Before you worry about what the hardware of tomorrow will look like, take a look at what we've already left behind. Remember the 5.25-inch floppy disk? Have you ever connected a PC to an online service by pushing a telephone handset into the rubber cups of an acoustic coupler? Remember when the worst desk in an office was the one next to the screeching daisy-wheel printer? All of these items have disappeared since their heyday in the 1980s.

     Leaf through an old computer magazine and you'll get an idea of how segmented the personal computing market used to be. In 1987 the most popular software titles were available not only in IBM- and Macintosh-compatible versions but also in formats for the Commodore 64 (pictured above), Commodore Amiga, Apple II, Apple II GS and Atari ST.

     PCs evolved at a startling pace in the 1990s. In a 1992 column I suggested that a good home office PC would have at least a ``386SX microprocessor, an 80-megabyte hard drive and 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch floppy drives. If you use programs written to run with Microsoft Windows, four megabytes of user memory are also required.''

     Later that same year I reviewed a fledgling online service named America Online. ``With attractive rates and easy-to-use software, AOL seems to be attempting to strike a compromise between the colorful, but sometimes slow graphics of Prodigy and the speed and variety of text-only services like GEnie and CompuServe. The funny thing is, the compromise actually seems to work.'' Of course America Online has since become the world's largest online service.

     PCs have evolved by knocking down technical barriers and widening data bottlenecks. Remember how DOS (Disk Operating System) limited programs to using no more than 640 kilobytes of memory? Advances in memory management and Microsoft Windows broke through that limitation.

     Technical breakthroughs such as the PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus and the AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) bus provided the wide data pipelines that allow today's PCs to process high-resolution color graphics and full-motion video as quickly as old PCs could underline text.

     The most important PC improvements may have been the ones that made life simpler. For example, today's memory cards snap in place much easier than the old multi-legged chips. Today's USB (Universal Serial Bus) port offers a simpler way to connect peripherals to a PC than the old-style serial and parallel ports.

     Then again, some things haven't changed: Most personal computers are still beige and good units are still expensive.

     Has the PC reached the ``must have'' status of the television and other household appliances? Not by a long shot, but PCs seem to be making themselves a little more indispensable each year.

     Where will the PC go in the next ten years? Probably into your pocket. As technology makes it possible--and affordable--to surf the World Wide Web with a portable device, the desktop PC may fade into secondary status as a data-storage device or as a base station for communications.

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Original column Copyright 1999 Stadium Circle Features
Other text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Photo Copyright OldComputers.Net