No matter how you ’re take this , you ’re reading it on a gimmick unfathomably more powerful than the 4.77 Mhz IBM 5150 PC . But 30 long time ago , that auto was so powerful , it specify what PC mean for the entire world .
In 1981 , the screen background data processor was still mostly relegate to the business enterprise world . But it was flourish — a multitude of vie companies with compete format push out bulky boxes with bulky monitors . You ’ve never discover of most of them , because the IBM 5150 murdered them all very shortly after its departure . It started at $ 1,565 — highly affordable for the time — and pop the question a floppy disk option , a simple , textbook - based interface , available at your local Sears Roebuck or Computerland ( this was a recollective meter ago ! ) .
The spread of the 5150 , and the demise of contender , established IBM as the de facto personal computer scheme of the humankind . Rivals made their own versions — clones — but they were all based on IBM ’s engineering , and “ IBM compatibility ” became the meridian seal of approval of the fourth dimension , as “ iPod compatible ” would many , many years subsequently .
And now , IBM does n’t even make commercial computers . But the ascendancy of the PC — the very fact that the term became a generic — start with the 5150 ’s dominion .
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