Dawn of the Personal Computer: From Altair to the IBM PC
Posted 06/03/09 at 12:30:00 PM by Erik Klein
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IBM PC/AT
The PC/AT introduction was the last time IBM managed to set the PC pace. Its Intel 80286 processor was a true 16 bit unit which meant that IBM had to redesign the bus for 16 bit addressing. The bus quickly became the industry standard and was soon named as such.
The ‘286 also upped RAM limits from 1MB to 16MB and brought about new levels of suffering with Expanded and Extended memory management.
Over-clocking was briefly possible with the earliest ATs until IBM redid the ROMs to prevent that. Other vendors, however, were more accommodating.
Either way the AT brought forth enough power for Microsoft to run a new DOS shell with technology borrowed from Xerox PARC.
And thus Windows was born.
RAM 256K-16MB
CPU 6MHz 80286
Supporting Operating Systems IBM PC DOS, CP/M and others
Predecessor IBM PC XT
Successor IBM PS/2 line
Notable Firsts First IBM 16 bit PC and Bus
A look back at these old machines shows the clear path of Moore’s Law. Since the release of the IBM PC/AT, the personal computer has grown faster and microchips have shrunken smaller by orders of magnitude. The antiques we’ve showcased may be considered slow and crude by today’s standards but they all contributed, even if only a little, to the PCs we use today.
Early Media
In the early days of personal computing, users had any number of options for loading programs and for keeping their data safe. Floppy and hard disks were common, but so was paper tape and cassette tape. Less common were micro-cassette tape, bubble memory, and even “floppy ROMs,” which were thin, plastic records sent with some computer magazines. And speaking of ROMs, there were the standard ROM chips plugged into boards but many manufacturers put them into card-edge packages and tucked them into plastic cases (cartridges.)
Magnetic Media
Examples: 5.25” 30 MB hard drive, 8” floppy, 5.25” floppy, 3.5” floppy, Coleco Adam High Speed Digital Data Pack, Cassette Tape, Micro Cassette Tape.
All of these and more were used on early computers. Most were slow and fairly clunky, but they were far better than re-keying programs every time you rebooted.
The total capacity of these represents less than 1/20th of one CD ROM.
Solid State Media
Examples: 2K ROMs, ROM Board/bare Exidy Cartridge, Atari Cartridge, Commodore 64 Cartridge, TI 99/4a Cartridge, Intel 1702 EPROM (256 bytes), Exidy Sorcerer Cartridge (in a hollowed out 8-track tape case) Coleco Adam/Colecovision cartridge.
Cartridges and ROMs were used to provide ready code at boot so that the computer was useful as soon as power was applied.
Analog Media
Examples: Paper tape, Interface Age Floppy ROM, Punched cards.
Paper tape was widely popular for the earliest computers due to the easy availability of used Teletypes. These operated at 110 baud (10 bytes per second) which meant that a typical 8K program would take nearly 15 minutes to load! Most other media were faster, but not always by much.
Bill Gates Asks Hobbyists to Pay Up
Early users groups from coast to coast (the SiliconValley Homebrew Computer Club being the most famous) were venues for geeks to gather, demonstrate their knowledge, and share their inventions. Some folks demonstrated their new computers, some shared renditions of old tunes played on an Altair computer, and some shared software. Sometimes it was software they wrote and sometimes it was software that someone else wrote.
In one notable early incident, a regular at the Homebrew Computer Club obtained a copy of Altair BASIC on paper tape. Prior to the next meeting he made dozens and dozens of copies, which he freely distributed to other attendees.
So, in 1976 Bill Gates had a problem. He was making software that everyone loved but that few were bothering to pay for. In frustration, Gates penned an “Open Letter to Computer Hobbyists,” which was published in the Homebrew Computer Club newsletter and elsewhere. In the missive he explained that the unauthorized copying of software was theft and that doing so inherently discouraged developers from producing good software.
He explained that only about 10 percent of Altair owners had bought BASIC (although all seemed to own it) and that he and his staff were effectively working for $2 an hour producing quality software that the hobbyist community clearly valued.
The letter sparked some harsh exchanges, including a more pointed follow-up letter by Bill Gates, and ultimately started the discussion about software piracy. This discussion has, of course, picked up steam and continues to this day.
Apple ][
Submitted by Wily_One on Tue, 07/28/2009 - 11:20pm
The Apple ][ was the first fully assembled personal computer. (based on release dates it preceded the PET and TRS 80.) You seem to be giving the PET extra points for having the built-in monitor. The Apple ][ could simply be hooked up to a TV. One key difference between the three is the Apple had color. The PET and the TRaSh 80 were B/W.
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My first computer....
Submitted by gustyk on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 2:38pm
...was a Texas TI-99 4A with a glorious Extended Basic cartridge that allowed to invoke sprites that were 8x8 or 16x16 bits. I still rember how bad the function CALL COINC worked to determine when 2 sprites colide (vital for shooting games I used to program). The video procssor got dizzy with 3 or more sprites in line.
When all my classmates were dating girls in highs school, I was spending hours in front of the TV coding 16Kbytes of software... AAAGGHHH
My next computer was a Commodore 128. I learned how to trick some interesting features with PEEK and POKE. The most useful was the one that allowed to run C64 games with the power and speed of C128. My first lines in Assembler were written in C128...what a orgasm !!!
Then I jumped to PC XT, PC AT 286 with the 80287 math co-processor! Wow... Running Mathematica was such a pleasure...
Thank you MPC for the flashback!
gustyK!
Old hardware is fun...
Submitted by AMD64Blondie on Fri, 06/05/2009 - 8:39pm
While most of my PC is modern,the keyboard I'm typing this on is a 1991 IBM Model M.Sure feels just like a old-school PC.It's quite funny to think that the IBM Model M I'm typing on came out when I was only 8 years old.(my Model M was made in 1991,I was born in 1983.)With the right adapters(if needed) I think I'll still be using the same Model M keyboard 5 years from now.
Submitted by Asterixx on Fri, 06/05/2009 - 5:22am
Nunc est bibendum!
For an idea of what that hardware cost back in the day, I've got the entire 1983 Tandy computer catalog scanned and stored online. Simply go to http://www.foxthundercats.net/images/radioshack/page4.jpg (there are 40 or so pages, just change the page number to view the different ones). The prices for what we now look at as laughable technology will astound you.
I was disappointed to see no mention of the TI99/4A. That's the first computer I ever sat in front of, back in grade 4, at the brand new computer lab at Smokey Drive Elementary. We played around with Logo. The ol' 4A had a more imaginative way of dealing with errors - instead of DOS's staid "Bad command or file name" the 4A would say "Tell me how to ...". For example if you typed in "drw" instead of "draw" the machine would say "Tell me how to drw". Being a bunch of 10 year olds I probably don't need to tell you we had no end of fun coming up with funny things to type in so the computer would ask us to "Tell me how"...
Submitted by billcipp on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 5:43am
Let's face it. A lot of us started with Commodore because it was cheap and because we could program video games into it.
As now, back in the early 80s my friends and I frequented game rooms. Back then, alot of games were controlled with mechanical rotating parts and light actuated sensors. Then there was Pong. We were blown away! More and more computer games were introduced at this meeting place of early geeks and we became hooked.
My first computer was a Vic 20 mainly because it was under $300.00. Wow, not only my own gaming platform but we could program it. I learned quickly how to write and work with Basic. Then, we graduated to Commodore 64. Not only could I play the lates games and write my own programs, but I could actually use this computer with a program called GEOS for word processing and spreadsheets. Even my 3 year old son knew how to write the commands to start the computer and load the programs to play his favorite spelling and vowel adventure games.
Now I build my own systems, again because I can save some bucks and I know what I want; and I feel pretty comfortable about solving most of my families and friends computer woes. But, most of them take the PC for granted, like it was always there. I don't! I know how things started, and how things are today. Look at the graphics of the latest games, the cpus' and gpus', overclocking, etc., presentation capabilities, desktop publishing, digital imagery, not to mention the internet, facebook, instant messaging, etc.
To think, at least for me and my friends, it started with a simple game called Pong and a little computer called Vic 20! If the automobile progressed similarly, we'd all be riding in Jetson cars. What's that? Who are the Jetsons?
Submitted by EdwardVirtually on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 2:15am
as some have pointed out, a number of historically significant machines are missing. the timex sinclair, the vic-20, the radio shack color computer, etc. and before anyone gets too sad for old bill and his letter, it should be remembered his company's success is mostly due to his using a stolen copy of Digital Research's CP/M86 and relabeling it as his own product which he sold to ibm. he only cared about theft when he was the one being stolen from. doing it himself he had no qualms about. rip, Gary Kildall. you will not be forgotten.
Memories...
Submitted by ironsmyth777 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 7:02pm
Haven't seen a lot of these in forever. Interesting, though a time line is definitely called for. My old favorite was a Tandy 1000 TL2 with a 10 MEG hd, 640 k (yes k!)) of ram later upped to 768 k(video would use the extra 128 k), and a 80286 (8mHz) Intel cpu. This rig got me through many papers running DOS with Desk Mate, a Pro-Write word processor, and a dot matrix printer. I still miss that thing from time to time. That sucker would boot in seconds!
"You don't build a reputation on what your going to do."- Henry Ford
Submitted by tehR0XX0Rz on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 6:51pm
My high school had a couple of PCs by Ohio Scientific. I remember one had a HUGE 8" floppy drive--it alone was as big as my current PC. I signed up for a computer class, and within a couple weeks, knew more about the stuff than the poor guy who had to teach it. I wanted to grow up and make video games....Now I just play them.
Submitted by mono on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 5:54pm
How can you write an article of this type and not include the year each PC was introduced?
ahhhhh gyeah!
Submitted by pcwizmtl on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 2:53pm
again an again!
My first PC was a commodore 64, I was 3 years old at the time trying to match the letters in the book to the ones on the keyboard (lmao) at an attempt toprogram my own games!
thanks for the flashback MPC! :P
Submitted by ExarKun1138 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 12:16pm
Thanks for the ride down memory lane, guys! Great job!
My first computer was a Tandy Color Computer(Model 1), with the "calculator" style keyboard! It came with a whopping 4k of ram, and a total of 16 colors! WooHoo!
But one of my most favorite computers was my Atari 520ST! I had a badass setup with both the color AND monochrome monitors(with a monitor switcher!), 2 floppy drives, an external 20mb hard drive(later moved up to 2 40mb drives), and tons apon tons of software and periphrals(including a midi keyboard, which the ST's were famous for being great at, MIDI).
I agree there should have been more computers like the VIC20, Amiga 1000, AND the Atart ST's. I miss the days of the "individual" style computer systems, and not these Windows/Mac/Unix PC's we have today. Computers were more "fun" back then, and not EVERYONE had one, either! I felt special about that back then(that's the geeky side of me coming out).
I've had many of the computers from the early 80's on up, and can say at one time I had an Atari ST, Amiga 500, and Mac IIgs at the same time, before I sold the Mac, and then eventually both the ST and Amiga to build my first IBM clone computer and to continue from there by upgrading and expanding. Would I trade my PC now for any of those? No. But they sure were cool!
Submitted by ECA on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 12:15pm
lets get a few things STRAIGHT.
In the days of the C64, MOST programs were released to ALL the formats and machines.
the C64 was some GOOD office programs for its time.
Look up MULTIPLAN..
Look up the ORIGINAL GEOS.
The AMIGA FORCED MS to jump on the Graphical band wagon.
Before the amiga, MS/intel was more OFFICE oriented..and the graphics SUCKED until win 95.
The Amiga was popular in the USA, with those that LOOKED at what they were getting, and understood that Stereo sound and GRAPHICS were better on the Amiga. You also didnt need a MONITOR, just use the TV. there was no reason to spend another $200 for a 8" monitor when a 24" TV looked ALOT BETTER. And do I have to mention that theAmiga with the Video toaster and the Video FLyer PUSHED the video industry into Where it is now? And that the intel/MS machine couldnt beat the Amiga for 15 years running, until better graphics and the P2 MMX 200mhz came out. Beating the Amiga running on 35mhz, 16 megs, and 512k graphics.
You didnt even touch, BeOs hardware/software, which was mostly a rendering engine. This is so Two sided to a multifaceted history.
Im sorry that you were held in a box most of your young life.
Submitted by Boboche on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 11:25am
I don't know if this is funny, ridiculous, or just plain sad, but putting Apple I, II, III, and so on, you might as well have put the VIC-20, the Texax Instrument 99-4a and the Amiga 1000. As a Kid, these were the 3 computers (with the Commodore 64) that influenced me the most.
While I agree with the beginning and historical approach up to the PET, the rest is just extremely biassed, if not, the VIC-20 would have been there as much as the Apple 1 or 3 deserves to be there, heck, even the commodore 128 while at it. And what about the amiga 500 and 2000 which were huge hits, 500 for home gaming, and 2000 with the video toaster?
Were you around when the Amiga 500's arguments that were against it from the PC crowd were "well.. amiga is just good for GAMING... it's not a real computer" (exept for the fact that it had 4096 colors vs 4 on the PC, a GUI Multitasking OS that was fitting in less than 512Kb, separate graphic chipset that was offloading 2D calculation and having 30FPS video on-screen while the PC was smearing like crazy in 4-color graphic intensive applications, plus amiga had 3d animation software, amazing painting and video apps!
Just to prove my point, (yes I might have been an amiga fanboy back in the days) I would also put the Atari ST up there (amiga's biggest archrival back in the days), for Music, it was awesome and I'm sure some musicians here will point it out.
That mac classic without any amiga mention is a joke, you could pop Shapeshifter in your amiga and emulate that mac a 110% of it's speed, thus having both computers running, multitasking just as if you were running it on VMWARE by today's standards, AND running it faster than the equivalent mac (up to a quadra with a 68040!) since the bios was cached in fastRAM, making the Apple computers look overpriced and under-performing in comparison since the amiga alone was cheaper.
So how's that for technology and changing the way computers are being used? Did I mention stuff up there that are god awefully similar of what we see in PCs today?
I know about Macs and I validate the apple 2 contribution in the computing history, and the MAC classic was also a worthy piece on which I did a lot of paperwork, but for god's sake and transparency, dillute that Apple Fanboyism a notch, it's seriously irritating.
Submitted by mrvander on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 11:24am
I thought the predecessor to the Commodore 64 was the VIC-20? I clearly remember seeing a white VIC-20 at a friend's house shortly before I got my very own C64.
Submitted by linkmaster6 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 10:02am
How about Texas Instrument
Submitted by canbbb on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 9:35am
As I understand it, the Amiga never got off the ground much in the Americas, compared to the very loyal cult following it maintained for years in Europe. Nonetheless, the Amiga was the first PC to introduce advanced video imagery to the consumer market - it was in the mid '80s if I remember correctly. It had great graphics, and games/software were quite available. Its marketing was obviously not strong enough to compete against the IBM PC and Apple.
I owned an Apple ][ back then, soon followed by a Mac+, but I remember envying my friends who had much more powerful Amigas.
Brilliant Article! As
Submitted by Denis63 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 9:21am
Brilliant Article! As always!!
Keep up the fantastic work!
Submitted by alloyking on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 5:08am
Some of you guys must be around some crazy Mac fanatics?? As bashing Mac fanboys was not my first response after reading this feature.
I personally don't mind
Submitted by Cache on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 5:30am
I personally don't mind Mac's, but some of the fanboi's are.... well, the Taliban thinks their doctrine goes too far, and that's really saying something.
Submitted by linkmaster6 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 5:52am
Thats a good one. I'm not saying Microsoft doesn't have its flops and its far from perfect but we Bill Gates shit does stink.
Submitted by Cache on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 7:31am
I'm fairly centrist on overall computer applications. Both sides have flaws, and both sides have definite perks. Ultimately, though, I find Apple's "Our way or the highway" mentality when it comes to computer applications to be somewhat closed-minded. I don't like the idea that merely replacing a battery voids any warranties on a product because it was deliberately made to fail--I find that very distasteful, and degrading to those of us who don't mind taking out what's there and upgrading to better parts.
Again, not saying that Apple does not have some very fine, fun products, but at the end of the day for me, I'll marry Microsoft and use Apple as my mistress.
Submitted by linkmaster6 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 5:25am
No just after reading about Xerox's machine it reminded me of arguments I've come across online where they were claiming they were. I really don't give a crap about mac fans blind faith.
Submitted by linkmaster6 on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 4:10am
Well Mac fan-boys theres the proof you didn't come up with a GUI
Blinded by the light...
Submitted by Havok on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 4:22am
They've been so blinded by anti PC and Apple propaganda that they can't accept what is in the history books.
OMGWTFBBQ
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