Happy 30th Birthday PC!

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering what links Pete Sampras, Terry Nutkins and Hitler’s mother, you’re probably alone. But, just in case you’re still wondering, all three share a birthday with something far closer to our hearts: the IBM Personal Computer.

Few involved in launching the PC back on 12 August 1981 would have known that were creating a platform that would survive for three decades, let alone one that would utterly dominate personal computing. Despite a slow start, within four years the PC was outselling all other personal computers combined. Although this massive growth has slowed, the most recent figures show that an amazing 85 million examples were sold worldwide in the second quarter of this year. So how did the PC grow up so strong? And will it still be here in 2041?

FIRST STEPS

The PC came about after the market for home computers first exploded at the end of the 1970s, with computers such as Commodore’s PET, Tandy’s TRS-80 and, later, Sinclair’s ZX80 taking what had previously been the preserve of electronics enthusiasts to a far wider audience. IBM, already a long-standing maker of business computers, wanted a product it could sell to the expanding home market, so in 1980 it set about producing one.

The face that launched a thousand chips: IBM’s 5150 Personal Computer launched on 12 August 1981

Not known at the time for moving quickly, IBM convened a special team to design the PC. Headed up by Don Estridge, Project Chess did things differently – using existing third-party components rather than bespoke IBM parts in a bid to keep costs low and development fast. This approach worked, allowing the team of 12 to finish developing the product in a year, but another development decision would prove the single biggest factor in the PC’s success: IBM decided to publish the computer’s architecture, allowing third-parties free rein to develop compatible upgrades.

From 1983, the entry-level PC Jr cost less than $700 but hardly sold. The following year, Time magazine billed it as “one of the biggest flops in the history of computing”

Within weeks of the launch of the IBM Personal Computer, which had the official model number 5150, other manufacturers were providing compatible expansions and add-ons. Though cheap by IBM’s standards, the PC still cost a good deal more than most other personal computers, so initial sales remained slow. However, as it comprised of off-the-shelf components and with an open architecture, the new PC platform proved susceptible to copying; and the first rival IBM-compatible PC went on sale in June 1982.

In 1987, IBM tried to regain the initiative with the Personal System/2 (PS/2) which had a new, proprietary architecture. It sold well to businesses, but it couldn’t kill the PC

While cheaper third-party PC-compatibles were a disaster for IBM, robbing it of sales and the initiative, ironically they sealed the success of the platform it had created. In the early eighties, home computer users were fragmented between countless non-compatible brands that, embroiled in a price war driven by Atari and Commodore, slowly winked out of existence. In contrast, the PC provided a common platform that no single company ‘owned’, and by the mid-eighties computer users had begun to gravitate towards it. Tragically in August 1985 – just as the platform he created had begun to realise its potential – Don Estridge died in a plane crash.

A BRIGHT FUTURE?

The PC platform came to dominate a rapidly expanding personal computer market, whose total sales rised from 11 million in 1985, through 58 million a decade later to 207 million by 2005. Looking forward to 2015, worldwide sales are expected to top 400 million, driven by continuing growth in Asian economies. This massive demand produces economies of scale, meaning that while the modern PC is vastly more powerful than its ancestors, it’s also massively cheaper: At launch the IBM 5150 cost from around £1,000 upwards, equivalent to over £3,000 in today’s money – which would buy you 10 of today’s basic PCs.

These days you can get a powerful PC with a monitor for as little as £350, check out this Palicomp Core i3 Blast 530OC37-24 as an example

As prices have fallen, the people buying PCs have changed. The platform has long been vital to business and education, but with help from the internet and formats like the MP3, we’ve welcomed affordable entertainment PCs into our homes in huge numbers. According to government figures, 75 per cent of UK homes had a PC by 2009 and almost as many had an internet connection. Such widespread and connected computing has given us new ways to stay in touch, share opinions and even voice dissent. Perhaps it’s fair to say that the PC has become a tool of social change.

Technology never stands still, however, and with more than two billion PCs sold worldwide, the main component suppliers have become rather good at designing and building semiconductor devices. Increasingly their expertise doesn’t just find its way into fully-fledged computers. Now, laptops, nettops and netbooks vie with tablets and smartphones that make our access to computers and the internet far more convenient and widespread.

Thirty years on, IBM is celebrating its centenary and its progeny remains at the centre of a revolution that it helped enable. Take a moment with us to wish the PC a happy birthday: looking forward 30 years, it’s hard to imagine that recognisable desktop PCs will still be with us.