The Personal Computer Turns 30 Today

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The IBM Personal Computer turns 30 today. That sure makes you feel old, doesn't it? Well, enough reminiscing, all you damn whippersnappers can take your overclocked computers and get the hell off my lawn! :D
 
That's why Steve is so damn [H], he's been on the forums for 11.6 years before the PC was even invented! :eek:
 
No, the X86 PC turned 30. The "personal computer" (PC), is a little older then that.
 
The IBM PC turned 30, not the X86 PC; The 8088 was not a full 16-bit CPU. ^-^
 
funkydmunky said:
No, the X86 PC turned 30. The "personal computer" (PC), is a little older then that.
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"personal computer" is a little vague and pretty much encompasses anything post mainframe/terminal era.

When people use the term PC today though, what they are referring to is an IBM PC Compatible, and this is the 30th birthday of the IBM PC, the first of its kind that our modern PC's are loosely based on.
 
I had one with a CGA Monitor, Dual Floppies and 64K RAM, with a Hercules RAM card installed for another 192K RAM. 256K RAM went a LONG way back then.
 
Space_Ranger said:
I had one with a CGA Monitor, Dual Floppies and 64K RAM, with a Hercules RAM card installed for another 192K RAM. 256K RAM went a LONG way back then.
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I used a few computers of that vintage, but my first own computer was a little bit later model. a noname PC compatible 286 with 1 meg ram, 1 5.25" floppy drive and a 10 meg hard drive. :p

(and that hard drive was huge by modern standards. It was two 5.25" bays tall and filled the entire bay.)
 
Steve Wozniak created/invented "the personal computer" - Steve Jobs just became the mouth to market it, but Woz is, was, and always shall be "The Man." :)
 
Zarathustra[H];1037624490 said:
I used a few computers of that vintage, but my first own computer was a little bit later model. a noname PC compatible 286 with 1 meg ram, 1 5.25" floppy drive and a 10 meg hard drive. :p
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I had something similar...and remember spending $100 to upgrade to 2MB of RAM. And now I got 8GB for less than $100...damn why doesn't everything go down in price like tech.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037624490 said:
...and a 10 meg hard drive. :p

(and that hard drive was huge by modern standards. It was two 5.25" bays tall and filled the entire bay.)
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I had the external one, bigger than a breadbox ffs
 
I assume Steve meant IBM's version of the "Personal Computer" turned 30. As already noted, the headline "The Personal Computer Turns 30 Today" depends on how the term "personal computer" is defined to determine which was the very first one.

From http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

Pop Quiz: What was the first personal computer?

We'll make it easy for you. Let's define personal computer as a computer having the following attributes:
It must be a digital computer.
It must be largely automatic.
It must be programmable by the end-user.
It must be accessible, either as a commercially manufactured product, as a commercially available kit, or as widely published kit plans.
It must be small enough to be transportable by an average person.
It must be inexpensive enough to be affordable by the average professional.
It must be simple enough to use that it requires no special training beyond an instruction manual.

Was it the IBM PC?

Bzzzt! The IBM PC was introduced in 1981. It was perhaps the first to wear the "PC" label, but that was IBM's only innovation.

Was it the Apple ][?

No, the 1977 Apple ][ was the first highly successful mass-produced personal computer, but not the first personal computer.

Was it the HP 65?

No. Some people consider the HP 65, introduced in 1973, a mere calculator, but it was fully programmable; you could even play games on it. HP even called it a personal computer in their introductory article in the HP Journal, but it wasn't the first.

Was it the HP 9830?

Good guess! The HP 9830, introduced in 1972, was the first desktop all-in-one computer. It even had BASIC in ROM, but few people know about it because HP marketed it primarily to scientists and engineers, very quiet people.

Was it the DEC PDP-8?

No, but the PDP-8, introduced in 1965, was available as a desktop model as early as 1968, and while it was too expensive for most people, and required racks of peripherals to be useful, it was very personal for its time.

Was it Simon?

BINGO! Edmund Berkeley first described Simon in his 1949 book, "Giant Brains, or Machines That Think" and went on to publish plans to build Simon in a series of Radio Electronics issues in 1950 and 1951. By 1959, over 400 Simon plans were sold.
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From http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

The first personal computer

In 1975 Ed Roberts coined the term personal computer when he introduced the Altair 8800. Although the first personal computer is considered to be the Kenback-1, which was first introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and output data by turning on and off a series of lights.
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From http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/ed-roberts-altair/

Ed Roberts, the maker of the world’s first personal computer, died yesterday at the age of 68.
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From http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/610.html

.. announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957. The IBM 610 was the first personal computer, in the sense that it was the first computer intended for use by one person (e.g. in an office) and controlled from a keyboard
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From http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/compersonal.htm

Early in 1977, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer, Inc., and in April of that year introduced the Apple II, the world’s first personal computer.
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From http://pc-history.org/

The Apple II was the first true"personal computer" it was factory built, in-expensive and easy to learn and use.
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From http://spreadsong.com/the_ipad_is_t...uter_what_you_already_have_is_a_work_computer

The iPad is the first Personal Computer-- what you have is a work computer
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I still have my old 5150 stashed away somewhere. Original 5 slot motherboard that shipped with 64k, two full height floppy drives, and CGA graphics. I had upgraded to dual half height 360K floppies, 20MB hard disk (and later BIOS roms to support it), a 2MB Tall Tree Systems JRAM board (704K to DOS, and 1.5MB of RAMdisk WOO!) with the clock/ser/parallel option board, and the 4.77Mhz 8088 swapped out for a 10Mhz NEC v20 chip. It wouldn't run well above 6Mhz though, I think my hard disk controller didn't like the 8bit ISA bus overclocked because it would corrupt files. For cooling I had originally blocked part of the front vents to direct incoming cold airflow better, but I later canibalized a 12v fan from a dead powersupply and cut a hole in the case for it. Yeah, thats right, my IBM PC had a blowhole. And no heatsinks, we didn't need no stinking heatsinks ;)

Ok, now I gotta go dig that sucker out of mothballs. I bet it will fire right up and let me pick up my savegame from Pool of Radiance, or maybe I can finish Starflight again... there goes my weekend. :)
 
I think my first computer was similar to the picture was an IBM personal XT had around 64Kb of ram and a gigantic 400Mb hard drive was sweet! lol
 
Virtualarc7 said:
I think my first computer was similar to the picture was an IBM personal XT had around 64Kb of ram and a gigantic 400Mb hard drive was sweet! lol
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I think you accidentally added a zero there. :D


Never had an official IBM PC in the house, though our first computer was a PC clone bought for ~$3000 back in 1988: an Everex STEP 286.
 
That looks like the first one my parents bought our family... I remember playing qbert and california games... oh and transelvania... that game rocked...
 
Chimel said:
The 8-bit data bus is precisely what excludes the 8088 from the x86 family. See wikipedia.
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That was just the external data bus, the 8088 still had 16 bit internal registers, and the same 1MB memory address range. It was basically an 8086 built to easily plug into cheap existing 8 bit hardware designs. Exact same instruction set, same software runs, I'd say its in the family tree.
 
I remember the 8088. I am old enough to recall the era of Telex machines at the office for that matter! PCs will remain with us, even if the mainstream consumers will turn to other things to suit their needs...
 
30 is like, nothing.. lets see what the pc looks like at 250
 
I had one of these damn things, well at least something just like it. I just bashed keys and played around with it, I was like 10. It was one of the first computers that I just thought was cool, even though I knew nothing about it. :)
 
And to think my watch has more computing power than that thing. Technology is absolutely amazing.
 
It's 30 yrs old alright! But that darn keyboard is still the best keyboard ever made!
 
messerchmidt said:
can we overclock it?
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Oh yeah, 4.77Mhz stock crankin up to 10Mhz+ with no cooling. lol. I've even heard of people overclocking the refresh rate on Hercules monochrome video cards to get them in the range multisync VGA monitors would recognize.
 
Here'e mine, but its a clone from 1985. The thing still works too.

N6I0V.jpg
 
My god... that's a lot bigger than I thought it was.. No edit too on these threads. Any chance the mods can correct that?:eek:
 
You know I can't smile without you
I can't smile without you
I can't laugh and I can't sing
Im finding it hard to do anything

Happy 30!!
 
800XL said:
Oh yeah, 4.77Mhz stock crankin up to 10Mhz+ with no cooling. lol. I've even heard of people overclocking the refresh rate on Hercules monochrome video cards to get them in the range multisync VGA monitors would recognize.
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Yeah, I had no overclocking experience on the 8088 or 8086 CPU's, but my 286 (80286) overclocked nicely from 8Mhz to 16Mhz and as above, didn't even need a heatsink or fan :p

My later 486 sx25 didn't even come with a heatsink or fan (though I added one when I overclocked it to 50Mhz, and that made it run X-Wing beautifully at higher res than at 25Mhz.) :p

To think of that. Two CPU's I had in a row that overclocked by 100%.

Imagine doing that today :p
 
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