Another thought regarding the history of the IBM 1550 and how IBM came to select the i8088: an aspect mostly overlooked is that IBM had already released the IBM Displaywriter System 6580 in the previous year (June 1980) as a small office system, which was already running on a 8086 processor at 5MHz. (Besides its own operating system, it was running UCSD-p and CP/M-86, so no DOS and Gary Kildall got eventually his deal on that one, which is also remarkable.) I don’t know about any obvious conncetions, but that machine had been already released with this specific choice of processor, when the PC was in its early design phase.
PS: Given that the 8086 was released in June 1978, I really don’t know how this one worked out with IBM’s 3 years development cycle, often mentioned in the context of the peculiar development process of the IBM 1550.
That’s a nice promo for the Displaywriter - almost an appliance, but so versatile. Certainly not to be confused with a computer! It’s for the admin staff to print out reports! (Internal competition probably being the reason for the coyness. I’m reminded of HP’s 9100 which wasn’t to be called a computer, and the PDP series which weren’t (originally) to be called computers. Oh, and Amiga, which was to be a console, and not a computer, as far as the original investors were concerned.)
Edit: oh, and about surprisingly versatile appliances, I note that it was Schneider who pushed the PCW word processors into a CP/M computer direction, for the German market.
There, I think we’ve mentioned every manufacturer now…
Interesting that ads for the Displaywriter mostly show it with a portrait monitor, but photos I see elsewhere all show it with the landscape monitor made more famous by the IBM PC. I’m guessing that the portrait monitor was a real option, but more expensive?
Yes, this caught my eye, as well: what appeared to be the heyday of the portrait monitor — every self-respecting secretary must have one — and an early appearance of what became the iconic PC monitor. And these portrait monitors look pretty high resolution. So, I guess, these would have been expensive. (I assume, any of the monitors and graphics cards were optional, just as on the PC.)
Also, apart from the separate disk station, the entire PC-setup is already in place with the Displaywriter.
(So the PC really gave us an integrated disk drive, small landscape monitors, BASIC in ROM, a 8-bit data bus, and a cassette port? And, of course, DOS.)
In the promo video, we do see the IBM PC monitor used at least a couple times (instead of the portrait mode monitor). And the PC 8-bit data bus, I think came from the 1981 Datamaster.
The big thing the IBM PC gave us was a more affordable price. But now that I think about it, this would have sunk the full 68000 (not 68008) anyway … remember the IBM AT. IBM initially gave the AT a slower CPU speed, because they were worried that customers would notice the IBM AT outperformed the far more expensive “real” computer IBM was running for them. IBM only increased the speed to keep up with PC clone makers (they were entirely unconcerned about eating into IBM mini sales).
Well, the same thinking would have canceled the IBM PC project had they went with a 68000. Imagine the engineers going whole hog with the 68000 and created a prototype that blew away IBM’s mini-computers. How would upper management have reacted? Would they think, “Wow, this is great! We should reimagine our entire business paradigm around this!” Or would they pull the plug?
Now I’m daydreaming about the possibility of IBM thinking in the opposite direction. What if Displaywriter had been based on cheap 6502 hardware? If it were supposed to be just a dumb terminal emulator with word processor capabilities, then there wasn’t a need for a high performance CPU. And choosing the 6502 would ensure this “smart” terminal wouldn’t eat into sales of their “real” computers. They could just copy the way Apple and Atari computers used shared bus architecture to reduce development and production costs.
With these reduced costs, IBM might have accidentally produced the “IBM PC” two years early. Instead of developing the IBM PC in a panic reaction to their customers buying Apple ][ computers, they might have been caught off guard by tons of people buying their “smart terminal” DisplayWriters without the associated minis…
Interesting product … it certainly doesn’t look like a “normal” computer:
That’s obviously some sort of lab equipment. Reading the wikipedia page it sounds like they initially tried to hide the machine, only allowing sales for scientific purposes. Then they tried to turn lemonade into lemons with models that removed the scientific specific hardware, and tried to market it as alternatives to competitors mini-computers (Digital, Honeywell) … and then they finally tried to market it as a CAD workstation (at the time, high performance CAD workstations were a viable niche market).
Browsing around, I don’t see any references to prices. However, I can deduce from the way they tried to market it I’m guessing maybe the $15,000 ballpark.
Maybe it was impossible to put together an affordable 68000 machine in 1982? Maybe it was simply not designed with cost reduction in mind, since its intended application was a specialty low run niche market anyway?
Having worked on the problem at the time I would agree that 1981/1982 was simply too early for a reasonably priced 68000 machine.
When the IBM System 9000 came out we were very confused because we were expecting the PC. The PC (5150) came out about a month after this machine.
Note that the same group that developed the PC had previously done the IBM System/23 Datamaster using the Intel 8085 processor and many of its peripheral chips. So doing the second computer with the 8088 was just a small change in their design.
The TRS-80 Model 16 has 68000 cpu, in 1983 for $ 4,999.00 128K ram/8 " floppy.
No 68000 software seems to be listed. BASIC in ROM seems to be standard for all RS
computers. 16K ram upgrade for the Model III was $50, BASIC ROM $299 ,
Ben.
Various mainframe vendors (including IBM) switched over to emulation, but the business model for these computers is weird and would never transition into anything of interest to a wider customer base. Like, since the 1990s the customer would actually get hardware that was a lot more powerful than what they pay for, but it’s throttled to make sure they only get the level of computing performance they are paying for. It’s literal crippleware.
Now, the 1980s PC XT/370 you’re referencing specifically is from before these emulators could do the job without second/third processors. But we’re still talking an expensive multi-user system not intended to compete with home computers. Same thing ith the TRS-80 Model 16.
I wonder why the Model 16 even existed. The Model II made sense to try … it was basically a CP/M system, back before CP/M would get slaughtered by the IBM PC. Their customers wanted to use the TRS-80 for business purposes, so it seemed like it was fulfilling a demand.
But the Model 16? No disrespect to Radio Shack retail employees, but Radio Shack was no IBM. Who was supposed to formulate a business plan and walk customers through the sales pitch? Who was supposed to supply the coders and operators? Were the end customers supposed to just figure this all out themselves?
And this is after the IBM PC existed. A customer confused about how to make a plan for the TRS-80 Model 16 could just throw up their hands and buy IBM for less.
I kind of feel like the Model 16 mainly existed to look impressive in the Radio Shack catalog and make its entire product line seem more “serious”.
Or maybe they were just throwing whatever the heck at the wall and seeing what stuck. In that case, the overall strategy worked because they struck gold with the Tandy 1000. No one could have predicted that IBM’s PCjr would … suck … and that a PCjr clone without its flaws would become an awesome success.
The PC may have succeded because they had a cheap O/S (DOS) and quick and dirty software ported from 8080 coding, and the price of DRAM dropped almost nothing. BASIC CP/M PASCAL
was about it for other operating systems, and that was 8 bit only.
I think the IBM PC succeeded quintessentially because it was affordable enough and it was named “the IBM PC”.
Imagine if the infamously derided IBM PCjr had come out in place of the IBM PC. People might have been puzzled by the low quality keyboard, but IBM would have replaced it with a better keyboard soon enough. It would still have become the same success.
Why? Because it was the solution to analysis paralysis. There were a TON of different computers out there, and a bewildering array of software options that were complicated to figure out. You had to be a computer expert to figure out what could run on what.
Even if you had the money for IBM’s offerings, IBM itself had a bewildering array of incompatible products. Even so, it was already a saying, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” You didn’t try to navigate IBM’s offerings yourself, IBM consultants did that for you.
Well, in comes The IBM PC, which not only garners huge news media attention but also has a wildly successful advertising campaign. Suddenly, the choice is simple. No more analysis paralysis, just buy the IBM PC. The software will work for it. It’ll work out. You definitely won’t get fired for buying it.
So, you have a lot of potential customers who were waiting on the sidelines unsure what computer solution to go in with, who suddenly have a clear safe option. That’s why the IBM PC was a success, I think.
Now, the historical IBM PCjr was a different story. The PCjr had a big obvious competitor - the IBM PC itself. So when the PCjr made a really bad first impression, there was an obvious superior alternative to buy instead.
I remember this quite well, particularly for the German speaking markets, as this was the time I started my interest in computers. Everyone had been asking (mostly ignorant of the various efforts by IBM in that direction during the 1970s), whether IBM was really going to miss out on that market. Moreover, the segmentation of the market was a concern for companies that were becoming ready for this PC thing, and IBM was somewhat expected to play the role of a savior, bringing standardization, where chaos ruled. When it became obvious that IBM was actually about to enter the market, everyone was holding their breath, making themselves ready for the jump. (This also killed a few designs, which might have performed well otherwise, like the Victor Sirius 1.) The success of the IBM PC was really much a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I had experienced it.
(There had been actual criticism, especially for the choice of the processor, but this died off pretty soon, as it was now time “to move on”. We now had a standard, and this was what really mattered. It is what it is, and now move on.)
That is, I’m not going that far as to propose that IBM would have made it with the ZX-81, but, well, anything short of it, if it only had those IBM features, like a solid case, clunky switches and a serious keyboard. (Well, IBM had their ideas on the latter with the PCjr…)
One thing about the IBM PC which was a departure for them, and surely very important: it went out to retail channels. People who’d never dealt with IBM could buy IBM. They got the idea of the IBM brand without the sales support, and they got it with the help of IBM’s first mass-market adverts.
‘ “People never got fired for buying IBM” had apparently never been translated into German,’ says Leonard Tramiel dryly … ‘which is why the ST was such a success in Germany.’
Of course retail was a huge departure for IBM computers, but they offered more than just computers. Back then, most offices had zero computers but a lot of typewriters. And a lot of those were IBM Selectrics because they were the best. Sure, you could save money with manual typewriters but electrics were faster. And if you had electric typewriters, they were probably IBM.
So, it’s not like IBM’s reputation was just built on small businesses dreaming of when they could play with the big boy’s toys. It was also built on commonly available hardware that ordinary people were already using every day for decades.
I was able to visit Silicon Valley in July of 1982 and naturally the thing I was most interested in seeing was the IBM PC since I knew it was a major turning point in the microcomputer industry. I found out that reality “on the ground” was very different than the impression I got reading magazines. I would go to computer stores and the people there had not even heard of the PC!! It had been out for a year at that point and was the best selling expensive machine having passed the Apple II for a while. Yet people in the business were not aware of it.
I was able to find one finally in a ComputerLand store but it was turned off and the store employees wouldn’t turn it on for me.
At a Radio Shack store I was able to see a laser disc and a Model 16 (also not running), which was the first 68000 computer I touched. The big deal about that machine was the promise that it would run Xenix (I don’t remember if it ever actually did).
I was able to see the VIC 20 at KMart and the TI99/4A at Sears, which was slightly impressive though similar stores in Brazil also sold computers like that. In fact, though computer magazines were available in supermarkets and such it was not as wide a selection as I could find at home.
This thread has left the rails almost completely, after the first 5 or 6 posts… maybe it would make sense to split the thread at that point? Not sure what a good title for the “other” thread should be, but “Not: A bit of progress on our Beeb816 project” would at least be accurate.
Well done on the Beeb816, by the way – I would have been seriously interested if I actually had a BBC micro
— and an early appearance of what became the iconic PC monitor. And these portrait monitors look pretty high resolution. So, I guess, these would have been expensive. (I assume, any of the monitors and graphics cards were optional, just as on the PC.)