Thirty-nine years ago today, IBM launched the IBM Personal Computer (model number 5150). This was, depending on your point of view, either a calamity or a cause for celebration.
The machine itself wasn’t particularly powerful by the standards of the day. When Intel offered IBM the 8086 (a 16-bit CPU with a 16-bit external bus) IBM requested a cost-optimized version of the chip instead. The result was the 8088, which ran at the same 4.76MHz clock as the 8086 but only had an 8-bit bus to external memory. Here’s the original motherboard:
Discussion Questions:
- Identify three key takeaways from the article. What did you find most interesting?
- How did the IBM PC change computing?
- How do the first PCs compare to the PCs today. How much more computing power do today’s PCs have?
- Do you think the PC has been good or bad for society?
Source: Joel Hruska, “Happy Birthday to the PC: Either the Best or Worst Thing to Happen to Computing”, www.extremetech.com, August 12, 2020.
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