SKIRMISHER

Twenty-five years ago today, on Aug. 12, 1981, IBM released something that it didn’t take seriously at first: the Personal Computer.

Let’s pause for a moment so that the BBC can pad to the window, smell the flower boxes, get sentimental, and reminisce about the good, old sunlit days when the PC was just a baby with a runny nose:

“The machine was developed by a team of 12 engineers, led by Don Estridge, who was known as the “father of the IBM PC”.

Development took under a year and was achieved by building a machine using “off the shelf” parts from a variety of manufacturers.

The machine had an “open architecture” which meant other firms could produce compatible machines. IBM banked on being able to charge a license for using the BIOS - the software which controls the heart of the machine.

But other companies reverse engineered the BIOS and were able to produce clones of the machine without having to pay IBM a penny.

That open architecture sparked an explosion in PC sales and also paved the way for common standards - something business had craved.

Since then the PC has come to dominate the home and the office and led the move to the online era with cheap global communication, e-commerce and for consumers the ability to find the answer to almost any question on the web.

Roger Kay, president of computer consultancy firm Endpoint, said the impact of the PC on all aspects our lives cannot be over-stated.

“I have for example an archive of correspondence from people that I diligently wrote letters to and all of a sudden that just stops,” he said.

“I don’t think I’ve got a personal letter for five years.”

Moving this revolution forward are the one billion PCs that are now in use around the world.

In many ways, the PC has become in the developed world, an essential tool in our everyday lives.”

via BBC

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