Happy Birthday Pc born on 12th., Aug., 1981

Today we celebrate 25th. "silver anniversary" for personal computer, the first ever one, IBM 5150, it was a miracle at that time, i know if you see it now you will say "you wouldn't touch it" and you may even think it's any other machine than to be a pc, but this one exactly was the reason we have these pc's today, it was the idea itself, it was the begin of the new generation, i just found this pretty article with some beutiful photos about this subject on BBC today's main page, enjoy it

 

Birth of the PC

 

The IBM PC was announced to the world on 12 August 1981, helping drive a revolution in home and office computing.

The PC came in three versions; the cheapest of which was a $1,565 home computer.

The machine was developed by a 12-strong team headed by Don Estridge.

We take a look at changes in home computing over the last 25 years.

 

taken from BBC website on 12th., Aug., 2006

 

You can view the full article at this link:

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Yeah, happy birthday IBM PC But in fact, it wasn't the first IBM PC, but it was at those times the most successful version, I remember I read about it years ago, but not to think about it, it still can be called as "the first" :oBut what I never liked about IBM PC, that they were in a such rush and money "lack" that they took the CPU from Intel and the OS form Microsoft.. But maybe this is better, who knows.

Try this link too

http://www.pc-history.org/

Regards
Dhanesh.

Hey, that was on the news yesterday! Nothing new to me I guess... That computer was less powerful than a simple mobile phone!~souradipm

Aww, that's so cute We might not notice this, but the personal computer has advanced a lot during these 25 years. Who knows what we might have in another 25 years!As for the price, this can be really interesting. A home computer used to cost around 1500 dollars, and now it can be bought for let's say 300 dollars. Does that mean that future computers will be cheap? I guess we'll have to wait and see..

lol, happy bday for the first IBM-based PC.Actually, the first PC was the Apple I, and II. They were truely the ones who brought computers to the masses.xboxrulz

Hey, that was on the news yesterday! Nothing new to me I guess... That computer was less powerful than a simple mobile phone!

 

~souradipm

 

it wasn't new for you, it's ok, but new for some others for sure , anyway that computer which was less poweful than a simple mobile phone, was at that time the most powerful machine at that time which u can have at your home, and at that time there were no mobile phones at all, years after that we got mobile phones which were more bigger than a laptop now, you were forced to carry a large case that contains of some machines to be able to make/recieve calls, don't forget that pager was a WOW cute brand new thing when it was realesed, where is it now???, do i hear someone says he met a man last month in an african forest who was using it???

one day you will say the same about your current pc, it was a useless thing, have nothing to do more than some 3d games, developing enviroments, that slow broadband internet connection a very weak 256 mb VGA card,........ and so on, it was a time waste

the CPU from Intel and the OS form Microsoft..

It was not so simple at the beginning.The IBM computers did not have exactly the same files than the microsoft ones. Remember, at these period, the IBM ones had the hidden files named IBMsomething... and the Microsoft ones had the hidden files named ms-someting....

I remember having an Apple II e that looked alot like that thing when I was a kid. Man I loved that thing. I was playing games on that thing before I got my Nintendo. Ah the good old days. Opps, now I'm showing my age. But it was an amazing thing to have that technology back then. Now, almost every kid growing up has a computer. I was one of only a handful in my class to have one. Great games, Hitch-Hikers Guide, Warriors of the Wasteland, Oregon Trail. Man, I cant say enough.

OMG now I KNOW I am old!!(Weeps into his kb and tears out grey hairs!!)
Yes I saw this on the BBC the other day and it really got my thinking back to the good ole days...

Here is a brief history of my computers...

I was lucky my father was a techy too..my first computer was this...

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
He bought it in kit form and soldered it up on the kitchen table much to the annoyance of my mum!
He got bored of it after a month cos we only had one TV in the house..mum and sister didn't quite have the patience to watch us try to program this beast for hours on end!! but I could use it after school when my sister wasn't so bothered to watch tv so it became by intro into computers..

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Then another Sinclair upgrade
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Then I switch my allegiance to the Commodore Camp..

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=65
Man I loved my Amiga!! I had two 3.5 floppies and saved up for ages to get the first HD in my school!!I remember the day 9 kids from school amazed as I booted Amiga Workbench and loaded a demo I made from my 20MB HD ))

Here's the first PC I used..
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
I used it at my first job after school in 89-I was designing PCB s (Printed Circuit Boards) on it.
LOL I was 16 and the only person apart from the senior designer that could work a PC so I got amazing experience doing really complex stuff that the traditional PCB designers could only dream of..it seemed to be a brave new world of PC tech taking over!!
So It seems I've been using a PC based computer for 17years now !! and computers for 23 years.
And yes it IS a brave new world....
Mark420;)))

lol, happy bday for the first IBM-based PC.

 

Actually, the first PC was the Apple I, and II. They were truely the ones who brought computers to the masses.

 

xboxrulz

 

True, but an apple isn't a PC... it's not like there's three major OSes for PCs:

-Window$

-Linux

-Apple OS X

 

All in all, an apple isn't a PC... unless at some time it was IBM compatible...

 

[N]F

The new Macs that are Intel based are practically like any other commodity PC, it just looks and feels different. MacOS X works on any x86 computer as long as it supports SSE2. Even MacOS X was originally written for the x86 processor before they ported it to the PPC architeccture.Mactels are essentially PC that is uberly awesome. You can even run Windows on them natively with bootcamp.However, I still don't understand why a Mac (PPC based) is not a PC. PC stands for Personal Computer and a Mac is a personal computer, it's mine... it's personal... Any computer to me on the market should be called Personal Computer (PC) because they are personally yours.xboxrulz

Edited August 13, 2006 by xboxrulz (see edit history)

However, I still don't understand why a Mac (PPC based) is not a PC

The PowerPC processor is a RISC processor, very different from the intel-compatible processors which are CISC processors.On PowerPC processors you have a Linux. Un fortunately you have no Microsoft Windows, because PPC are intel+Crosoft competitors.
It's a history feature. The "IBM Personal computer" has become a market-standard, first named IBM-Compatible, and then simply PC. And from that moment PC became a synomymous of "X86 compatible hardware", instead of meaning "a personal mean of giving computer power".
And also, remember that the main OS on PowerPC machines is IBM AIX. And some tens of years ago, there was a MS-Dos emulators on the AIX machines, allowing running Microsoft Windows 2.11.

Oh so I've been fooled all this time into thinking I had a PC ... Doesn't matter to me in the end. I was just a kid, I had fun, and it brought me to a new world that now I have grown to love. After that first Apple my dad bought, we did get something different besides Apple, (I couldn't tell you what it was though). Still, great to see the PC turn 25 and can't wait to see what happens in the next 25 to come.

I refuse to be a nerd enough to wish a computer type happy birthday. Or just refuse to admit it...