Birthday PC meets MTV 25 years on

The 25th birthday of the PC this month follows the launch of new generation of Intel low-drain processors that will allow the platform to go truly mobile.

The IBM PC, launched on 12 August 1981, was not the first personal computer. Desktop models called ‘micros’ (as in Microsoft) had been available for five years, thanks to the invention of the integrated chip, which could pack in hundreds, and eventually billions, of transistors.

Intel saw its microprocessors as replacements for expensive mechanical switch arrays and failed to spot what was coming. It was youngsters like Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Wosniak who saw the potential of the new chips as low-cost computers. As it happened the birth of the PC was also the birth of Microsoft as a significant force.

Micros became so popular that IBM could not afford to ignore them. The first IBM PC was unremarkable, even dated, as the review we carried at the time made clear . It did not even use the latest Intel processor.

Our reviewer, former PCW editor Dave Tebbut, recalls that he had no idea how important the design would be.

With hindsight, it is clear the industry needed a standard platform because applications had to be rewritten or tweaked for each new model. The PC quickly became the first platform of choice for software developers because IBM was then by far the world’s most powerful computer company.

PC sales soared because so many applications, including free utilities, were available for the machine. But it was the astonishing fact that hard-nosed IBM had created an open architecture that made the PC what it is today. Compaq started making PC clones and soon lots of companies were doing it – often better than IBM.

Apple managed to stay afloat by being first to market with a graphical interface, and making a virtue of its closed architecture. Macs and their peripherals were more expensive, and offered less choice, but buyers could be sure they worked together.

Acorn in Britain tried to push groundbreaking designs such as the Archimedes against the PC tide, and not entirely in vain: its Risc technology underpins the success of chip designer ARM, a spin-off of the company.

Now IBM’s PC business is owned by Chinese company Lenovo, and little remains of that first PC in today’s models. Processors still use the same x86 code, with some additions: the old parallel and RS232 serial ports are rapidly becoming redundant, and the Bios kernel code, invented by Gary Kildall, is soon to be superseded.

The PC platform hit a plateau five years ago when hardware finally caught up with software, so that even entry-level PCs could run mainstream applications well. A recent emphasis on power efficiency, with processors doing more work on fewer watts, has moved the platform on, allowing the PC to become truly portable.

At the same time, networks and wireless links have matured to the extent that a mobile PC can have the world’s online resources, including music and movies, permanently on tap. Curiously, music TV station MTV was launched just days before the IBM PC. A quarter-century later, their worlds have converged.

* If you are in the mood for stories about computing's earliest days, see here . There are links to interviews with the men who built Britain's (indeed, the world's) first working computers, and with the man who invented the basic mechanism of the mouse as a way of navigating what may have been the first digital graphical interface. It also points to a longer interview about Gary Kildall (see above).