Abstract
We discuss the introduction of the IBM personal computer, which was a major milestone in the computing field. The introduction of the IBM personal computer was a paradigm shift in that it placed computing power in the hands of millions of people. The previous paradigm was that an individual user had limited control over a computer, with the system administrators controlling the access privileges of the individual users. IBM’s goal was to get into the home computer market as quickly as possible, and this led IBM to build the machine from off-the-shelf parts from a number of equipment manufacturers. IBM outsourced the development of the operating system to a small company called Microsoft, and Intel was chosen to supply the microprocessor for the IBM PC. Intel and Microsoft later became technology giants. The open architecture of the IBM PC led to a new industry of IBM-compatible computers.
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Notes
- 1.
Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975.
Reference
The man who could have been Bill Gates. Bloomberg Business Week Magazine. October 2004
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O’Regan, G. (2016). The IBM Personal Computer. In: Introduction to the History of Computing. Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33138-6_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33138-6_12
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