Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 12 Aug 2011 1:17 pm |
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From a link in digg.com...
On this day in 1981, IBM launched the “Personal Computer.” Revealed at a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, the 21-pound PC cost $1,565, boasted 16K of memory, and had the ability to connect to a TV set, play games and word process.
IBM launched the 5150 on 12 August 1981, and it quickly established the look and feel of PCs in general.
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This past weekend I fired up my Compaq Portable. First time it had been energized in over 10 years. Darn thing took off and had a blinking cursor in a minute.
10 mB HDD (Who will ever fill up a 10 mB HDD?)
640 kB ram (348 in AST 6-Pak Plus card)
mda video
360 kB 5-1/4" FDD
Serial and parallel I/O ports
Weighs a ton.. (not portable, but luggable).
It was brand new in April of 1985. I used it then to write the code for an emmbedded system built around the 6502.
I left it running for 12 hours to reform the caps in the power supply.
In 1987 I was running a DOS version of Algor's FEA software on an IBM PC with similar specs as above, except it also had the 8087 math co-processor.
A linear stress model we were fighting with took from 5:30 PM until about 10:00 AM the next day to finish. We always started the run at quitting time to let it process overnite.
In 1994, with an 80468DX2-66 sytem, I built a DOS disk with the same software.
The same linear model finished on the 80486 machine in 4 and a half minutes.
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Lawyers are done: Emmons SD-10, 3 Dekleys including a D10, NV400, and lots of effects units to cover my clams... |
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