IBM 5150 : Dawn of the user-friendly PCs

IBM is a company that is well known and respect, some of us know them for their cloud computing programs whereas, some know them for their mainframe computers but few of us know that they used to have a personal computing division and they were the first to be considered “serious pc’s” with plenty of user-friendly and relevant software.

Humble beginnings of the industry

The transition from the mainframe computers to PC’s was rather a tough one, computer enthused individuals/hobbyists used to buy microprocessors and computer kits and build their own computer from scratch and the initial pc’s from Commodore, Vic, Amiga, TRS-80 were pieces of innovation yet it wasn’t something that can be scaled due to the fact they weren’t made for a regular individuals and focused on the hobbyists.

Entry of the Pioneers

Looking at the excitement and growing market of the personal computer industry, IBM registered in bringing a user-friendly pc machine to the market. One of the Exec’s from IBM at that time said “instead of selling million dollar computer to a thousand people, we are going to sell thousand dollar computers to a million” that exec being Bill Lowe, head of personal computing division, IBM.

Bill Lowe will go on to break many IBM rules while creating the IBM PC, one of them being using hardware off the shelves from third party, In IBM this practice was known as ‘open architecture’ and was forbidden. At IBM they believed that every part of the product assembly should be created by them so that quality was ensured but breaking of this rule by Bill was endorsed by the chairman himself because he knew that time was running out to enter the market.

Computer Language BASIC was already available so IBM came to an agreement with Microsoft, the creators of BASIC but there was still one thing that was missing.

An operating system

Gary Kildall, creator of CP/M operating system which was the dominant operating system and was present on almost every computer and Microsoft owned Basic dominated the computer language landscape.

IBM already had a deal with Microsoft for Basic so they went to them first. Executive from IBM visited the Microsoft offices, Jack Sams, the lead executive was expecting a package of the Basic language and an operating system, the issue was Microsoft didn’t have an operating system.

Amid the confusion, Bill Gates told the executives that he thinks an operating system compatible for IBM PC is ready and Gary has it, then he went on to call Gary Kildall and told him ‘I am sending down some guys, treat them right, they’re important guys’.

Then the executives went on to California to meet Kildall for his operating system. Now note that, Gary Kildall was not a businessman and didn’t care much about it and was more of a hobbyist and inventor.

Now coming back to story, he and his wife sent them away as he had some other plans, Yes he did that!

Iconoclast!

IBM was a big organisation that sometimes used to get things done in a wrong manner, maybe the disapproval of Kildall stemmed from this fact.

The disappointed executives returned from California back to the Microsoft offices, Bill saw an opportunity the first time they asked him for an operating system and now after seeing IBM not able to come to terms with Kildall he knew this was an unmissable opportunity.

Now the issue was that they hadn’t started working on an operating system and IBM needed one, FAST!

Striking Gold

Paul Allen, Gates programming partner and co-founder of Microsoft was able to find the operating system everybody so wanted right across the town, it belonged to Tim Patterson of CL computer products. It was called QDOS (Quick and dirty operating system).

The operating system was almost identical to the CP/M operating system and in fact was adapted from it, Tim bought an CP/M manual from retail computer store for about 5 dollars.

Problem was that Patterson used to work for SCP (Seattle computer products) and they held the rights for the operating system. Fortunately for Microsoft, SCP was a small organisation that was in dire need of funds so they went into negotiations with Microsoft.

Microsoft bought QDOS for $50,000,

Crazy!

Deal of the century

Bill went to IBM with the operating system they so wanted and he delivered as promised. Microsoft and IBM went on to call the operating system as PC DOS 1.0. The stipulation pitched by Gates to IBM for using the OS that is owned by Microsoft now was:

50$ for every IBM PC sold throughout the globe with the PC DOS 1.0.

IBM agreed to it as they had no other option and knew time was of the essence. This deal went on to make Bill Gates the richest man on earth and Microsoft a formidable corporation.

The Launch

IBM 5150 was launched on August 12th, 1981 for a price of $1565.

This PC went on to change the trajectory of (once fledgling) personal computer industry and changed the approach of computer proprietors from Hobbyists to commercial purpose. A big giant like IBM entering made the audience acknowledge the potential of the personal computing industry.

It went on to surpass Apple 2 to become the fastest selling computer at that time, every big or small organisation were rushing to get the user-friendly machines and inculcate it within their workforce.