12 August
1981 · everyday
IBM introduces the Personal Computer
On August 12, 1981, IBM unveiled the IBM 5150 — the IBM Personal Computer — at a press conference in New York City. Priced at $1,565, it came with 16 kilobytes of memory, a cassette tape drive for storage, and the option to add a floppy disk drive. It ran PC-DOS, supplied by a small company in Seattle called Microsoft.
Within two years the IBM PC became the standard for business computing, and “PC compatible” became the most important phrase in the technology industry. It didn’t create the personal computer — Apple and others were already there — but it gave the concept legitimacy. When IBM said computers belonged on desks, corporate America believed it.
“Do you remember the first computer you ever used? Where was it and what did you do with it?”