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Documentary: How and Why IBM ended up creating the PC (and ended up choosing the 8088

ajrossnz

Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2019
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19
Location
Wellington, NZ
Hi Folks,

For those of you who don't know me, I have a youtube channel - Als Geek Lab: (www.youtube.com/alsgeeklab).

Very occasionally, I like to post some of my videos up here that I think may be of interest to some of you. Hope that's OK.

I made this video a while back but I thought it might be worthwhile putting it up here, I never did when I made it. Most of you will be familiar with the IBM story of how they made the PC, but hopefully you'll like this video. If you have any feedback on any of my videos, please let me know! Most of them are regarding retro computing & gaming.

Video link: https://youtu.be/-WwWfAKsS4w

Cheers,
Alistair
 
Enjoyed the video.

Interesting thing is IBM Japan had their own range of "PCs" and they used 8086 @ 8Mhz (probably 7.xMhz or whatever, but the part was rated for 8 ). By 1985 their JX was also available with a Turbo 8088 setup with high resolution color graphics (720K disks and HDD option too!) - but that particular sub model never left Japan for obvious reasons.

If you ever need "models" for your IBM videos I have a decent range of IBM gear here, including an original Model A 5150 with period correct expansions, and a 5150 with 5161 expansion. Sadly sold the 6150 RT though, the ROMP setup was pretty neat, it was never really utilised but the machine has the ability to run multiple operating systems at once, and have multiple users on those OS's. I also always remember the Computer Chronicles episode where Gary Kildall says something like "but isn't the speed comparable to the new 386 at say 24Mhz" - made them blush a bit.
 
NEC preceded IBM with the PC and had a substantial majority share (70%) of the PC market in Japan. During the heyday of the PC (5150, 5160), IBM never made much of a splash in Japan.
 
Very nice documentary. Also makes for a very nice introduction to Silicon Cowboys (Compaq documentary).

(and never did thank you for the Apple2Pi video, so thanks!)
 
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