Happy Silver Jubilee IBM 5150 From Most AdSensers

Where would we be now without this machine?

[OptiRex]

August 12th 1981, the official birthday of the IBM 5150...the "first" PC.

OK Mac lovers we know you're there:-)

Can we imagine work now without this piece of equipment?

Can you possibly imagine your AdSense life without it or your lap top?

The Internet without the PC?

As with all businesses there will be successes and failures however this piece of equipment has possibly given more positive liberation to the planet than even the mobile phone has managed to do so far.

Just where will this marvel take us over the next 25 years with our AdSense accounts?

Just when will I be able to have a GoogleCard or is that too wishful thinking?

What do foresee as the next great step with Google AdSense or contextual advertising?

[motorhaven]

There were PCs before the IBM PC. Apple and many CP/M systems come to mind. IBM was the first MSDOS PC, which came directly from CP/M.

What IBM did was spread the gospel to more than just hobbyists and a few businesses, making the PC repectable for corporate America (and the rest of the world).

Remember the saying that no one ever got fired for buying IBM? A lot easier to explain a failure to your boss if you bought an IBM rather than an Apple II+ from that "hobbyist" company!

[europeforvisitors]

I've still got an IBM PC with single-sided 5-1/4" drives in my office. I considered buying a computer before then (beginning with the Altair in 1975 or so), but its predecessors were either too toylike (Radio Shack, Apple, Commodore) or too clumsy in one way or another (Cromemco and Ohio Scientific come to mind). The IBM PC had a great keyboard (one that was designed for touch typists), a sharp 80-column monochrome monitor, and an excellent word processor for that era (WordStar 3.3, which I used in beta until the release version came out a few months later, and which I replaced with XyWrite III when that became available a year or two later).

The IBM PC succeeded because not just because it had the IBM nameplate, but also because it took the needs of business users seriously. For me, it was the logical next step beyond my IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter--even if it cost nearly six grand with a letter-quality printer!

[eeek]

In California a "5150" is the statute used to lock up crazy people for a 72 observation. ;)

[loner]

Fond memories for me. It was my step up from HP programmable calculators. Who'd a thunk it?- A calculator with a screen.

[frox]

I've still got an IBM PC with single-sided 5-1/4" drives in my office

I cannibalized mine to upgrade it into a quasi-AT..

OTO, I still have the Apple with Z80 CP/M board I wrote my first paid programs on...

To speak of older stuff, I have an Olivetti Programma 101 that is still partially functioning. But I really never used that.

[Chapman]

I can't believe this thread stuck atound! I quite thought it was destined for a "move"! In any event, I always surmised you guys were a bunch of "old farts"!

As a standing member myself, I can boast (not to do a blatant "mine is older", but yeah) that my computer room (museum) is still home to two functioning Digital Group Z80 machines from 1976 (not Digital Equipment but the Dr. Robert Suding competition to IMSAI and Altair) with double sided, double density Shugart 8" floppies running CP/M and OASIS.

I also have two original Macintoshes (Macintoshi?) and a couple of DEC PDP 11/73 minicomputers. None of them "do" much anymore but they all still do what they did!

Also... a moment of reflection for Don Estridge (the father of the IBM PC) who died almost four years to the day in the tragic crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191 at Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas.

Chapman