johnl@ima.ISC.COM (John R. Levine) (02/08/88)
In article <19753@bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes: >Along the same lines, most PC users don't know that the "IBM PC" was >IBM's second attempt at a "personal" computer. The first was called >the System/23 or "Datamaster". I don't recall the IBM product number. >... >From my experiences with IBM's first "PC", I'm more than happy that >they used someone else's chips to build the "real" PC. It was at >least flexible enough to last as long as it has, and encouraged the >3rd party support that's necessary for the survival of a personal >computer. It's hard to see what that has to do with it, considering that the Data master was built around an Intel 8086! It suffered severely from a closed architecture that made it impractical to add any third party devices. It was also designed under IBM's standard guidelines which at the time said that users should never be expected to open up their computers, nor to do any assembly that requires tools. It was unthinkable to expect users to get out their screwdrivers, install cards, set DIP switches, and other stuff that we now take for granted, for better or for worse. But the Datamaster was far from IBM's first personal machine. They had a nifty though pricey series of desktop machines in the 70's, called the 5100, 5110, and 5120. They had some random IBM CPU chip inside never seen since. There were two ways to program it, in a fairly decent Basic, and in APL\360. Rather than write a new APL interpreter, they wrote a 360 simulator and ran the user part of APL\360 on it. It certainly was compatible, though a little slow. Using cartridge tapes for the only mass storage wasn't much help either, and by the time they added a floppy option to the 5120 it was too late. But you certainly could run serious APL programs, subject only to space constraints. IBM's first personal computer was arguably the 610 Auto-Point Computer, also known as the "Personal Automatic Calculator" introduced in 1957. It cost $55,000, was programmed mostly with paper tape and a plugboard, and generated a lot of heat, since it used vacuum tubes. Like too many IBM machines, it suffered from a long delay between design and delivery, and so was obsolescent when it was introduced. They only made 180 of them. -- John R. Levine, IECC, PO Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349, +1 617 492 3869 { ihnp4 | decvax | cbosgd | harvard | yale }!ima!johnl, Levine@YALE.something Gary Hart for President -- Let's win one for the zipper.
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (02/08/88)
> In article <19753@bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes: > >Along the same lines, most PC users don't know that the "IBM PC" was > >IBM's second attempt at a "personal" computer. The first was called > >the System/23 or "Datamaster". I don't recall the IBM product number. > >... ... and let's not forget IBM's 68000-based CS90000 (tho that was released in June, 1982)..