WEBVTT - The History of IBM: Part 3 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.000 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve cameray. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:18.200 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody, 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:20.880 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Billett, and 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.959 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.840 Sitting acrossing me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.840 the heavens, Mrs Sakamoto, you're beautiful. You know. I'm really 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.960 glad that Jonathan is decided to switch to song quotes 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.520 instead of movie quotes, because with three podcasts on IBM 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.680 and yes we're stopping at three, he probably would have 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.160 been tempted to quote Tron five or six more times, 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.960 or war games game would have gone back and forth 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.080 between those two. It was possibly hackers. That's another good one. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.600 It was just funny because I didn't realize that you 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:00.640 had quoted Tron so frequently into like, like you quote 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.040 a Tron an episode blah blah blah. Also in the 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:05.680 in six episodes later you did again, and in three 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.680 episodes later again you really liked Tron. Yeah, I think 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.480 he listed forty one total quotes and and maybe three 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.000 or four of them were from Tron. Yeah, that was 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.200 not on purpose because I didn't keep track of them. 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.160 Was a recap in case you're listening, in case you're 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.560 just tuning in. IBM was founded and it did a 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.280 lot of stuff. Yes, and we decided to do three 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.200 podcasts on IBM because someone we we've had people ask 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.320 us about the history of of IBM. We we talked 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.479 about the history of different commuting companies because uh tech 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.119 stuff isn't really about reviews, it's about technology and people. Yes, 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.200 and uh so we're sort of fascinated by how these 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.000 machines got into our lives, and we thought, oh yeah, 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:45.920 let's let's do a podcast at IBM. And then we 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.280 started researching it and found out you can't do a 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.200 podcast about IBM unless it's several hours long writ and 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.800 we just don't have that kind of stamina. Uh So, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.920 although some of you kind of get peeved with us 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.240 when we do more than one podcast that at time 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.320 on stuff, we decided to do allur research at one time, 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.120 and thank you for sticking with us, because we've finally 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.760 gotten too. They've done so much innovation up into the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.920 point we're reaching today. I mean, they've they've done mainframe computers. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.280 They've they've introduced programming languages, they've helped the space program, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:19.079 they've helped the military, they've introduced this electric typewriter. Yeah yeah, well, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.880 I mean there were a business machine company, so UM 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.200 they were very interested in all kinds of processing and 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.600 and helping people do work. Yes, So at this point 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.320 they're really going to change the work landscape because they're 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:38.320 going to introduce a machine that will affect everyone's productivity. Yeah, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.440 so we're we've we've covered IBMS history all the way 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:45.240 up to nineteen eighty one so far, stopping well, stopping 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.400 at nineteen eighty right where we're going to pick up, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.480 and keep in mind that the companies that formed IBM 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:54.959 actually date all the way back to the eighteen the 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.800 late eighteen hundreds. Right at the point at which IBM 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.400 was founded. There were three companies that were brought together 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.360 as a business venture. There was m Herman hollerwas Tabulating 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.680 Machine company, which is really what's left of IBM today 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:14.160 is a computing company. There was also a time recording company, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:19.880 which the IBM divested itself, UM and UH Computing Scale 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:24.040 Company Computing divested itself of and all and and those 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.760 other two companies, the companies that they sold those branches 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.400 are all surviving today. So all three were successful. So 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.720 they were talking. When you're talking about this a company 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:36.800 that's nearly a century old, of course you're gonna have 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.120 a lot of stuff to cover. Well. In one they 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.720 started to forge new ground. Now not entirely new in 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.120 the sense that there were other competitors on the market 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:50.160 in but it was the personal computer era. IBM at 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.240 this point had not entered the personal computer era. Its 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:57.000 focus was, as Chris was saying, on businesses. Yeah, we 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.520 talked about the system's stroke three sixty and three seventy, 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.640 which were uh innovative because they weren't just the giant 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.800 room filling mainframes. They were modular computers that could be 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:12.760 added onto and part of that equipment including included terminals 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:17.000 UM and before UH, in the in the fifties and sixties, 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.599 there were machines that basically had lights and switches, and 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.880 you know, before the displays came on the scene, you 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.719 couldn't really figure out specifically what you were doing. We 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:30.640 we talked about this in a previous episode a long 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.160 time ago, about programming, and they would take a bunch 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.280 of punched cards and bring them into the machine, and 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.520 you couldn't really tell whether the machine was gonna do 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.720 what you wanted it to do until it read through 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.560 all the punch cards and then the lights, the appropriate 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.039 lights flickered on or off, right, and you would then 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:50.680 know whether or not the program you had designed worked. 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.279 And if it didn't work, you had to go back 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.560 and go card by card and figure out where the 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.960 bugs were in that system and then reprogrammed. And this 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.680 just took a long time. So, um, you know, there 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.760 were and and this isn't to say that IBM is 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.039 the only company and innovating in the computer space, um 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.320 during this time, but these are these systems were not 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.520 you know, they had terminals at this point and they 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.560 were starting to become uh more useful, but they were 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.240 using a central computer CPU rather than you know what 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.800 we think of today. Right, All these different terminals were 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.200 tapping into the same centralized brain, if you if you will, 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.159 and so you can think of it as like UM 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.239 time sharing. Right. Often you would have time sharing systems 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.120 where a terminal would be able to access the computer's 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:41.039 processing power. But the more terminals you add, the more 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.719 you had to divide that up. You couldn't give everyone 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.320 unfettered access all the time. Instead, you would have a 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:52.520 system that would schedule when you could access the core. Now, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.000 this would go really fast, so to most people would 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.240 seem instantaneous unless there was an unusually heavy load on 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:03.800 the system. Um. But in effect, you've got someone controlling 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.560 all the traffic. Well, let's let's talk about personal computers. Now. 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.480 We started seeing the personal computer market developed in the seventies. Yes, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.040 and it was with computers like the al Tear, the Altar. Now, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:21.080 the al Tear didn't have a monitor, um, but the 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:26.200 TRS eight did. Yeah, that was Tandy's machine. So many 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.279 of us remember that had used the floppy disks that 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.480 we talked about in the last episode, which were an 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.279 IBM innovation. You had. You had an upstart computer company 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.479 called Apple that was starting to Yeah, I know, it's 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.640 hard to believe that a computer company we called Apple. 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.040 And then there's another computing company you might have heard 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:51.520 of that came out with the Atrip computers. Um, you 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.520 had the Common War sixty four coming out in the 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.600 early the late seven these early eighties. Um, you had 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.840 all these different companies getting into it. Well, IBM, here 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.640 you have this this old technology company that has an 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.159 incredible history with computing. They get into the market in 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:14.920 nineteen eighty one, they introduced the fifty one fifty personal computer. I. Yes. Now, 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.760 if you wonder why we call them PCs or personal computers, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.240 this is why. Yeah, it's um. They they were using 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.000 off the shelf components to build this machine. They used 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:30.680 Intel's eight to sixteen bit eight eight eight processor Classic. Yeah, 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.080 they were looking at that there. They were also looking 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.560 at the possibility of using a Motorola processor or the 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.160 eight six from Intel. But they determined that those processors 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.520 were actually too powerful for a personal computer. It wasn't 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.200 necessary to have that kind of processing power. That's kind 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.240 of funny in it. Yeah. Well, you still to this 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:48.200 day have companies that will say, you know what, we 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.360 don't need to put that powerful processor into this machine. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.640 Sometimes it's not just because you know, it's not that 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.280 they're trying to to mess with the consumer. It's because 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.240 they'll say, well, if we put in this powerful chip, 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.000 that means we have to figure out how do we 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:06.280 keep it cool? Right right? Well, that's that's evident in laptops. Yeah, 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.560 that's and that's also evident in lower cost machine. If 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.480 you don't held devices exactly exactly what I mean. If 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:14.120 you go to a computer store and you go, hey, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.840 that one's only three you know I could get that 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:18.640 computer and I have a computer for three hundred dollars, 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.800 It's like, yes, you will, and it will have a slower, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.400 less powerful processor. So when they were looking at the 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.400 who would provide the operating system for this machine? They 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.440 first went to a company called Digital Research and they said, hey, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:34.280 you guys want to give us the operating system or 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:36.200 you want to partner with us and provide the operating 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.480 system for a new personal computer. And they said no. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.480 So they went to a different upstart computer company, a 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.000 company that started right around the same time as Apple 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.560 in fact, and had co founders who were also shared 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:53.439 quite a few uh qualities with the Apple co founders. Yes, yes, 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:54.920 as a matter of fact, I think we may have 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.760 done a podcast on these guys. We may have. Actually, 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.960 memory does there is a bell ringing somewhere. That might 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.280 be a fire drill or an angels getting its wings. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.320 It could be Actually you're probably thinking of the disc 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:12.320 operating system. Yes, Microsoft disc operating system. Now Microsoft got 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:17.520 this operating system originally from Seattle Computer Products, and uh, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.120 Seattle Computer Products had an operating system called q DOSS, 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.240 which do you know the at least the semi apocryphal 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:30.079 name that q DOSS actually refers to this. This may 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:31.760 or may not be true. It's one of those things 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.720 that people hold as true, but there's no actual proof. 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.680 Q DOSS stands for Quick and Dirty Operating System. So 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.040 you've got this, uh, and this was a line command 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.800 operating system, right, you would type commands into your on 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:51.480 your keyboard and look at the display to figure out, 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.760 you know, to to actually execute stuff. Um. So Microsoft 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.520 buys q DOSS and then adapts it into an operating 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.760 system they called PC doss, and then later they renamed 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:10.360 it MS DOSS for Microsoft. Oh so let's talk a 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.760 little bit about the fifty one fifty. This was not 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:18.640 a lightweight machine. It weighed approximately twenty five pounds. Well, 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.079 it's lighter than the system slash three sixty. Well yeah, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.360 and I don't actually know that. I'm just taking an 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.720 educated guess. You didn't need a hand truck to move 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.080 it into your office, so there there was a benefit there, right, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.480 But it wasn't exactly you know, it wasn't a portable system. Um, 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:36.320 the processor speed on the fifty one fifty was four 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.800 point seven seven mega hurts. That's mega hurts. Guys. You 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.760 know you have gigga hurts processors like my my phone 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.880 has a giga hurts processor. So that's you know, my 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.920 phone is way more powerful as far as the processing 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.320 standpoint is concerned than the old of course, you know 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.840 that was so the CPU had about twenty nine thousand 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.160 transistors on it would sounds like a lot, except now 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.240 we're approaching for the consumer market. We are now approaching 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:09.680 one billion transistors on a single processor. Yes, there's a 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.560 lot more than twenty nine thousand. That also shows the 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.360 the whole concept of exponential growth with Moore's law. We've 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:18.240 talked about it a lot, and you know it's hard 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.120 to imagine what that really means until you think, all right, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.480 we're talking two thousand eleven now and we're approaching a 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.839 billion transistors back there were just twenty nine thousand. That's 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:34.640 that's crazy. Um, the you could get the system for 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.400 if you wanted a bare bones system, you could have 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:41.200 sixteen kilobytes of RAM. It was expandable up to two 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:46.640 hundred and fifty six kilobytes again kilobytes. Uh. Then you 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:51.200 had fortes of ROM read only memory. Uh, and you 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.480 could have up to two five and a quarter inch 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.320 disk drives. Man, do you remember the five and a 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.400 quarter inch discs? You do? I'm sure? All right. So guys, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.760 if you are um, if you're one of our younger listeners, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.319 we got a lot of you out there, five and 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.960 a quarter inch discs. You may have seen these in 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.640 books or on television, or on movies, or or or 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.000 maybe you've stumbled across an ancient computer burial mound and 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.760 you've found some. But the five and a quarter inch 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.800 discs were these black uh disksmayed out of a very 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.680 thin plastic. Some people thought that's why they were called 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.360 floppy disks, because you could actually fold them up. And 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.880 that I even remember when I was a kid people 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.760 mistakenly identifying three and a half inch discs as hard 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:32.600 disks because they were made a little a hard plastic 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.120 the outside. That's not that's not true. Inside sloppy. Yeah, 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.920 so you had this very flexible material inside. Yeah, you 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:41.679 weren't supposed to mess with them too much because they 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.880 could be easily damaged. But that was the storage media 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.200 these UH devices used. The original UH did not have 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.120 a hard drive, It only had the disk drives UM 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.640 and had a monochromatic display. That means, of course, that 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.120 the computer screen could only show one color, which was 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:00.920 not the you know Apple too. We went with green. 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:03.719 It was like a dark green. The IBM was more 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.319 of a white. UH. I remember that being thrown by 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.640 that when I got when we got our first IBM computer, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.640 it also could come UH. There was an option to 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.880 get a cassette drive with it, so you would use 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.920 a cassette to store information as opposed to the floppy drive. Now, 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.360 the cheapest one of the fifties, the one with the 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:26.640 sixteen kilobytes around, cost about one thousand, five hundred sixty 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.559 five bucks, which today would be around three thousand, seven 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.480 four dollars. Little pricing, little pricing. The if you wanted 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.040 to trick it out, like you wanted to get the 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.840 glow and the dark stuff and you know the hemp 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.400 and base yeah himmy in there. No. No, if you 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.400 wanted the two hundred six kilobytes a RAM, you've got 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.280 the two disk drives, you've got all of that stuff, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.240 then you're talking six thousand dollars, which today is over 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.240 fourteen thousand bucks. Yes for a computer. Fourteen dollars for 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.320 a computer. And keep in mind you can't climb into 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.560 this computer and have it drive you places, because I 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.079 think for teen dollars that should be able to transport 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:06.160 you beyond in your mind. Yeah. Also, I note about 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.640 about UM A lot of people not really sold on 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.440 it being Van Halen's best album. Nice I can't drive 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.920 fifty five um, actually I can't drive at all. So 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.680 the the software that you can get back in those 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.880 days included stuff like the Visit couc spreadsheet. I remember 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.520 Visit and easy Writer one point zero easy Writer not 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.240 Writer UM and different. And also there was an incredible game, 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.280 Really Adventure, Yes Microsoft Adventure. I was back in the 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.760 old fifty days. So yeah, you could pick these up 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:48.720 in um sears or computer Land computer stores at the time. 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.000 That's where those were the outlets that were carrying it. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.920 And this created a PC compatible market. When you if 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.040 you ever heard the term PC compatible or IBM compatible, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.400 let's talk about other companies that made computers that ran 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.840 on using the same components as the IBM computers, which 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.640 meant that you could run the same programs that IBM 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.480 computers could run. Yes, and this has a lot to 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:17.840 do with the market share that Windows has today, yes 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.840 versus Apple's market share. Yeah, you might ask yourself, why 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.400 is it that when you walk into a typical office 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.200 you'll see more often than not, you'll see Windows machines 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.800 everywhere and only a few max, if any max at all. 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.960 I would argue there are two major reasons. Pray, hit 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.280 me up with those reasons you um. First of all 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:44.600 is that IBM was willing to license this architecture to 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.120 other companies. So there were clones. Yes, you could send 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.640 them in if you like. Thus the IBM compatibles right exactly. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.440 And Apple specifically did not want to do that. Yeah, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.120 they experimented it with it for a while when Steve 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.560 Jobs was kind of pushed out of the company and 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.640 it did not go well. And when Steve Jobs came 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.720 back that ended too to sweet. And if you want 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.720 to write in and argue that you may, because there 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.040 are people who will argue that it was starting to 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.720 take off with but yeah, I mean it wasn't. It 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.960 wasn't an immediate change, and it was way way after 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.080 this point. This point is where IBM had established itself 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.280 in the marketplace. But the other thing that I think 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:28.600 significantly contributed to this is marketing because IBM, as we 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:33.200 have touched on in two podcasts already, is to some degree, 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.920 well it's in their name business machines. They're synonymous with 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.680 computing power for companies. Yes, they had they had a 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.120 longstanding reputation as being the company to go to for 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.120 your technology needs if you were a business and people, 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.840 even though they were available at sears and other outlets, 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.280 people didn't buy these machines for their homes for the 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.320 most part. Now small business owners started to pick them up. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.800 Business owners were buying them, small business owners, larger business owners. 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.720 Uh they were. They were gobbling them up to use 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.000 at work for work stuff. You didn't have people buying 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.800 gaming PCs because they're dining games out there. That yeah, 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.400 if you were buying games, you were buying them honestly 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.200 the very early days of computer games. Can you remember 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:21.960 these days where you would go into a computer store 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.960 and there'd be a bulletin board, a cork bulletin board, 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.960 and up there you would see penned their little plastic 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.040 bags that would contain a disk and a sheet of 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.639 instructions and that was what computer games looked like on 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.919 the earliest days. Yeah, I remember those days. That was 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.280 before you know you really we could all do a 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.439 discussion about the how how computer games evolved. From a 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.560 marketing standpoint, it would actually be pretty fascinating because, like 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.119 I said, those early days, you would go in and 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.320 it would be it might even be a local programmer 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.840 who built that game and then just copied it onto 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.440 as many discs as he or she could, and then contacted, 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.200 say a hobby store, and sold them through the hobby store. 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.199 Later on you would get into the more the larger 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.680 distributing models of companies forming around creating video games. I 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.600 think Richard Garriott was one of the first people to 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.919 really demand that his games be packaged in a box 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.960 as opposed to in a in a ziplock bag. But 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:23.040 getting back to the the the IBM, the personal computer. Yeah, 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.480 it really did well in small business and large business markets. 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.880 It started to pick up in the home market as 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.800 well for more affluent people obviously, because you know, asking 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.199 folks to to drop dollars on a computer, that's a 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.240 lot of money, even if even if you were just 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.040 saying fifteen hundred dollars today, without taking inflation into account, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.440 that's still a lot of money to ask for a computer. Well, yeah, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.119 people people complain about that all the time, about computers 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.040 that cost more than a thousand dollars. I see that 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.000 all the time. Well, that's just too much. Well, and 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.880 it's why, it's why some people think of Apple as 0:18:55.920 --> 0:19:00.800 being a boutique computer system as opposed to, you know, 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.240 a personal computer that you would normally think of. People 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.440 think of Apples being almost a laitist because the products 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.240 are more expensive. Although you could also just just as 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.600 easily argue, well, you're paying for quality. You know, you're 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.479 paying for the quality of the parts in there. And 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.440 because the computer market on the PC side is more 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.280 piecemeal that you can put together computers based upon whatever 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.399 off the shelf components are out there that you also 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.000 are you know, just just as the parts come from 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:33.640 all different parts of the world. Uh, the quality spans 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.520 the entire spectrum between really awesome computers and really really 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:42.720 kind of not so awesome, crappy machines. Well, something that 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.240 was there was something holding it back. What's that? That 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.320 would be the operating system you were just talking about, 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.800 Because doss is not necessarily user friendly. It can be 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.440 willing to learn. I actually I was. I was a 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.119 Doss fanboy, and that I had bothered to learn all 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.359 the commands, and it was it came naturally to me. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.439 Granted I was learning TOSS in that time of my 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.439 life when I was when that the language centers in 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.399 my brain were really receptive to stuff. If I were 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.239 trying to learn it today, I'd be like, what the 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.800 heck this is? Give me, give me a graphic user interface. 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:24.400 This I can't know. Uh, the around the room right right, 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.520 or I throw the machine across the floor. I mean 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.880 I really six on one, half a dozen on the other. Well, yeah, 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.399 the you know later on in the eighties and the 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:38.199 early in the early mid eighties. Um, now, and then 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.159 we gonna just give a year, I would say, I 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.520 would say eighty four. But yeah, I mean the the 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.320 PC was out for a couple of years before Apple's 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.200 Macintosh at the scene, before the Amiga hit the scene. Uh, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.360 Commodores Amiga, before uh the Atar e s T hit 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:59.280 the scene. With graphical user interfaces. Yeah, the Xerox had 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.720 been working on in the graphic interface. Yeah, that was 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.119 back in the seventies actually before but they weren't on 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.560 these devices. No, the personal computers were all these line 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.800 based UM. You would actually type commands in to make 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:17.320 things happen U. Yeah. IBM released the personal computer XT, 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.480 which provided more memory. It also introduced the dual sided 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.240 diskette drive UM and it had a fixed desk drive 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.879 which we now really referred to as a hard drive UM. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.280 And they also introduced a color printer. And personally in 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.639 the business side, IBM was also uh doing things with 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.320 personal banking machines and robotic systems. They were working they 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.960 While we're talking about personal computers, keep in mind IBM 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:45.199 on the on on their research and development side, they 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:48.400 haven't stopped. They're still pouring lots of money and time 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.679 and effort into research and development. They're coming up with 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.280 really cool stuff. We're mostly focusing on the personal computers 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.520 for this podcast, but that doesn't mean that that was 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.320 where IBM's entire focus lay at the time. Yeah. Definitely 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:01.320 if you're interested in learning all the stuff that they 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.560 were doing as time and it is rather fascinating. If 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:07.200 you like computer history, the Computer History Museum and IBMS 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:11.400 archives are great free places to look for information on that. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:13.960 And we're we're skimming over some of that except for 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:18.000 the some of the really interesting tidbits on company culture 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.639 and things. But I'm glad that you left one of 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.719 the things off once that happened in Remember we were 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.120 just talking a minute ago about how personal computers were 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.760 mostly for businesses at this point. UM I would argue 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:37.280 maybe except for really hardcore computer enthusiasts, and we had 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.240 quite a few of those from dating from the sixties 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.679