WHAT was so special about IBM'S pc launched in 1981?????

Question

i am just trying to find out ,what made that pc special,what it used that made a big impact when it came out in the market.What form of business computing was used before the pc???best answer 5 stars

Answer 1

It was the open architecture, combined with the big name, that made the difference. Other systems like the DEC Rainbow (which I had), TRS-80, Osborne, etc., were only expandable with propietary peripherals and components. With the IBM, they had these emtpy slots that you could stick a card into to make it do something else, like communicate on a network or get better graphics. You could expand the memory, change disk drives, etc., without voiding the warranty or having to buy from just one vendor.
So that's the architecture that we have today. The slots have gradually changed from the original ISA, to PCI, (let's side-step the PS/2-Microchannel detour), AGP, and PCI-Express. The CPU sockets changed pin configurations, and the memory slots changed as well. But it's all pretty much the same "open" architecture, allowing vendor independence when selecting components. It was risky, and I'm sure it was contrary to IBM's culture of "lock 'em in and charge 'em for life". But it worked, and really changed the world.

Answer 2

The original PC was an IBM attempt to get into the home computer market then dominated by the Apple II and a host of CP/M machines. Other manufacturers soon reverse engineered the BIOS to produce their own non-infringing functional copies. Columbia Data Products introduced the first IBM-PC compatible computer in June 1982. Compaq Computer Corporation announced the Compaq Portable, the first portable IBM PC compatible in November 1982 (it did not ship until March 1983).

The original PC had a version of Microsoft BASIC —IBM Cassette BASIC— in ROM. The CGA video card could use a standard television for display, or MDA adapter and monochrome display model 5151. The standard storage device was cassette tape. A floppy disk drive was an optional extra; no hard disk was available. It had only five expansion slots; maximum memory using IBM parts was 256 kB, 64 kB on the main board and three 64 kB expansion cards.
It ran at 4.77 Mhz.

The original 1981 IBM PC's keyboard at the time was an extremely reliable and high quality keyboard originally developed in North Carolina for another $10,000 IBM computer system that had been canceled. Each key was rated to be reliable to over 100 million keystrokes.

Answer 3

Intel 8088 CPU and Optional 8087 math coprocessor and MS-DOS

Lots of good stuff for computers in that year.
Just a few:

MS-DOS 1.0 was released August, 1981.
American National Standards Institute more commonly known as ANSI was founded.
Commodore ships the VIC-20, which later becomes the world’s most popular computer costing only $299.95.

Hayes releases the Smartmodem 1200 with transfer rates of 1,200 bits per second.
and people thought that was high speed Internet.

Answer 4

my guess is... this is completely unfounded.. just my guess...

its the first mass produced microcomputer?

hehehe