On August 1981, 12, IBM (International Business Machines) introduced the first personal computer, the PC 5150.
The first PC was officially unveiled at a ballroom in the Waldorf Astoria, a New York hotel. The $ 1565 machine surpassed its more than 20-year-old counterpart in every way, which was also made by IBM. The production cost of the giant machine exceeded $ 9 million, it was also extremely expensive to operate, it had to be stored in an air-conditioned room, while its operation required the coordinated work of 60 people.
IBM has announced its personal computer with very loud ad text that the PC 5150 can even be attached to a television, played on, edited with text, and stored in more words than a very thick cookbook.
To cut costs, a simplified version of Intel’s 8086 processor, named 8088 and running at 4,77 MHz, was added to the computer. The structure had 256 KB of memory, while the 5,25 \\ ”\\” floppy drive was capable of handling 160 KB disks.
Although experts initially doubted the success of the first PC, primarily because of its high price compared to its competitors, it still sold more than 240 units in the first two years. It is worth mentioning by comparison that today, about 230,2 million computers are sold each year.
IBM engineers have been pushing for an open architecture from the beginning, thanks in part to the fact that Microsoft's operating system, DOS (DOS Operating System), has easily spread around the world.
