IBM Personal Computer

An IBM Personal Computer model 5150.

The IBM Personal Computer, more commonly referred to as the IBM PC, is a line of desktop computers developed by Don Estridge and a team of engineers at IBM and first sold on 1981-08-12. Although this wasn't IBM's first foray into the home computer market, it became their first hugely successful home computer line which allowed them to wrest control from companies like Commodore Business Machines, Apple, and Atari who had dominated the market. This allowed IBM to become the front-runner of home computers, despite the fact that their computers were inferior by most metrics. However, upon gaining much of the market, other companies began to produce cloned hardware, and, by the start of the 1990s, the IBM PC was just one of many companies producing essentially the same computer.

IBM PCs were primary designed for business use, and, because of that, the base model lacked graphic capabilities, color monitors, and sound beyond the PC speaker. However, they shipped with faster processors and more memory than their competitors, but they also cost three times as much!

The IBM Personal Computer replaced IBM's Datamaster model, and was superseded by the PS/2 line.

Personal

I used a couple of IBM PCs in my youth. The one I remember using most was owned by a friend from middle school. We usually played on his SNES, but, we usually played single-player RPGs, so the other person would get bored and play on the PC at the same time. I think it was an XT model with an EGA card and MS-DOS 5.0. I remember writing simple QBASIC programs on it.

Status

I do not own, nor have I ever owned an IBM PC.

Models

IBM kept a continuous release of new models, all called "PCs," so there is no official demarcation for when the model ends, but I like to group the original PC with the AT and XT models. Below are the base models, but each featured a variety of upgrades to the CPU, RAM, drives, and display capabilities.

Model	Model Number	Released	CPU	RAM	Hard Disk	Drives	Display
PC (Personal Computer)	5150	1981-08-12	8088 4.77 MHz	16 KB	None	None	Monochrome
XT (Extended Technology)	5160	1983-03-08	8088 4.77 MHz	128 KB	10 MB	5.25" floppy disk, 360 KB double-sided	Monochrome
AT (Advanced Technology)	5170	1984-08-14	80286 6 MHz	256 KB	20 MB	5.25" floppy disk, 1.2 MB high density	Monochrome

Hardware

To support the PC, IBM developed an assortment of hardware including:

• Monochrome Display Adapter
• Color Graphics Adapter
• Enhanced Graphics Adapter
• Professional Graphics Controller

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