Birth oF The PC ...

Birth oF The PC :

The IBM PC was announced to the world on 12 August 1981, helping drive a revolution in home and office computing.
The PC came in three versions; the cheapest of which was a $1,565 home computer.
The machine was developed by a 12-strong team headed by Don Estridge.
We take a look at changes in home computing over the last 25 years. IBM Unleashed The $1,565 IBM PC bought a computer and a keyboard. There was no monitor included and disc drives were optional. It included Microsoft's BASIC programming language.
"This is the computer for just about everyone who has ever wanted a personal system at the office, on the university campus or at home," said CB Rogers Jr of IBM at the time of release. Computer Costs IBM's machine cost between $1,565, for a home model, and $4,500, for a machine designed for the office.
The cheaper model would cost �1,872 today, taking 25 years of adjustments in the retail price index into account.
So what kind of PC can you buy for �1,872 today? What are the differences between the first PC and the latest PCs? Computing Power
The first IBM PC had a 4.7Mhz processor and the cheapest model had 16K of memory.
Disk drives were an optional extra but each 5.25inch disk could hold 160K of data.
The machines could display four different colours of graphics and 24 different colours for text. It also included a built-in mono speaker for music and audio. Future Shock
Consumers are spoilt for choice if they have �1,872 to spend on a PC. This machine, the Area-51 5500, has a dual core 1.8GHz processor - more than 765 times more powerful than the IBM.
It has 1GB of memory - 65,000 times more capacity than the IBM. The 160GB hard drive is equivalent to more than a million floppy disks used by the 1981 machine. Games
The IBM PC launched with rudimentary games and tools, including a music tutorial.
There was also a game called Microsoft Adventure. It was a text adventure game with no graphics and a home version of similar games that had been played on more powerful university computers. High Definition
Modern PCs are capable of running games in high definition and with surround sound.
The �1,800 computer comes with a dedicated graphics card, which would be needed to play a game like the one shown, called Crysis.
The graphics card itself contains vastly more processing power than the original PC. Impact Of The PC
Microsoft supplied the disk operating system (DOS) to PCs and it became an essential part of machines worldwide.
The PC also helped standardise business information; ensuring that data on one PC could be read on another.
There are now a billion PCs in operation globally.