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== History ==
Prior to the 1980s, IBM had largely been known as a provider of business computer systems.<ref name="pollack19810813">{{Cite news|last=Pollack|first=Andrew|date=August 13, 1981|title=Big I.B.M.'s Little Computer|language=en-US|page=
As early as 1980 there were rumors of IBM developing a personal computer, possibly a miniaturized version of the [[IBM System/370]],<ref name="byte198101">{{cite news|date=January 1981|title=Interest Group for Possible IBM Computer|page=313|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-01/1981_01_BYTE_06-01_Hand-held_Computers#page/n313/mode/2up|access-date=October 18, 2013}}</ref> and [[Panasonic|Matsushita]] acknowledged publicly that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer in partnership, although this project was abandoned.<ref name="libes198106">{{cite news|author=Libes, Sol|date=June 1981|title=IBM and Matsushita to Join Forces?|page=208|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-06/1981_06_BYTE_06-06_Operating_Systems#page/n209/mode/2up|access-date=October 18, 2013}}</ref><ref name="morgan198107">{{cite news|author=Morgan, Chris|date=July 1981|title=IBM's Personal Computer|page=6|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-07/1981_07_BYTE_06-07_Energy_Conservation#page/n7/mode/2up|access-date=October 18, 2013}}</ref> The public responded to these rumors with skepticism, owing to IBM's tendency towards slow-moving, bureaucratic business practices tailored towards the production of large, sophisticated and expensive business systems.<ref name="ibm5120">{{cite web|date=January 23, 2003|title=IBM 5120|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_6.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050311044344/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc/pc_6.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 11, 2005|access-date=March 20, 2016|publisher=IBM}}</ref> As with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development,<ref name="morgan198201">{{cite news|author=Morgan, Chris|date=January 1982|title=Of IBM, Operating Systems, and Rosetta Stones|page=6|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1982-01/1982_01_BYTE_07-01_The_IBM_Personal_Computer#page/n7/mode/2up|access-date=October 19, 2013}}</ref><ref name="bunnell19820203">{{cite news|author=Bunnell, David|date=Feb–Mar 1982|title=The Man Behind The Machine? / A PC Exclusive Interview With Software Guru Bill Gates|page=16|work=PC Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w_OhaFDePS4C&pg=PA16|access-date=February 17, 2012}}</ref> and a well publicized quote from an industry analyst was, "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance."<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 23, 2003|title=IBM Archives: The birth of the IBM PC|url=https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html|access-date=October 3, 2020|website=www.ibm.com|language=en-US}}</ref>
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Mion’s plan called for three major departures from how IBM traditionally did business. Mion felt that, if IBM wanted to compete in the microcomputer market, it would need to:
:a) Greatly reduce manufacturing costs by using standard, off-the-shelf components (e.g., disk drives, CRTs, power supplies, keyboards) in order to produce a competitively priced microcomputer
:b) Use a low-cost, third-party operating system. Mion felt that this was imperative in order to foster a cottage industry that could develop a broad array of applications that would help small businesses justify the purchase of a computer. Mion recommended Digital Research’s CP/M and a new O/S called MS-DOS from a little-known company named Microsoft{{cn|date=August 2025}}.
:c) Allow its microcomputers to be sold and serviced by a distribution channel consisting of independent resellers. (At that time, IBM had been experimenting with a chain of IBM Business Systems Center storefronts but their least-expensive computer cost $14,000.)
That plan made its way up the chain of command but was ultimately rejected in the fall. The top IBM executives reaffirmed that all “IBM” computers, and their major components, must be developed, manufactured, sold, and serviced by IBM.
In January
In 1980, IBM president John Opel, recognizing the value of entering this growing market, assigned [[William C. Lowe]] and [[Philip Don Estridge]] as heads of the new Entry Level Systems unit in Boca Raton, Florida.<ref name="blaxilleckardt2009" /><ref name=nyt /> Market research found that computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but they insisted the company use a design based on standard parts, not IBM-designed ones so that stores could perform their own repairs rather than requiring customers to send machines back to IBM for service.<ref name="blaxilleckardt2009">{{cite book|author1=Blaxill, Mark|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JO6kA0hebJIC&pg=PA195|title=The Invisible Edge: Taking Your Strategy to the Next Level Using Intellectual Property|author2=Eckardt, Ralph|publisher=Penguin Group|year=2009|isbn=9781591842378|pages=195–198}}</ref> Another source cites time pressure as the reason for the decision to use third-party components.<ref name="Big Blues">{{cite book|title=Big Blues: The unmaking of IBM|author=Carroll, Paul|publisher=Random House|year=1993|isbn=0-517-88221-3|pages=22|url=https://archive.org/details/Big_Blues_The_Unmaking_IBM_Paul_Carroll}}</ref>
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The design process was kept under a policy of strict secrecy, with all other IBM divisions kept in the dark about the project.<ref>{{Cite web|title=IBM PC Announcement 1981|url=http://www.bricklin.com/ibmpcannouncement1981.htm|access-date=October 4, 2020|website=www.bricklin.com}}</ref>
Several CPUs were considered, including the [[Texas Instruments TMS9900]], [[Motorola 68000]] and [[Intel 8088]]. The 68000 had 32 bit registers with a flat 24 bit address space for up to 16MB of memory and was considered the best choice,<ref name="millergates200119970325">{{Cite interview |last=Gates |first=Bill |interviewer=Michael J. Miller |title=Interview: Bill Gates, Microsoft |url=http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1754&a=11072,00.asp |date=March 25, 1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010823113747/http://www.pcmag.com/article/0%2C2997%2Cs%3D1754%26a%3D11072%2C00.asp |archive-date=August 23, 2001 |access-date=September 4, 2020 |url-status=live |work= [[PCMag|PC Magazine]]}}</ref> but was not production-ready like the others.<ref name="rhines20170622">{{Cite news |last=Rhines |first=Walden C. |author-link=Walden C. Rhines |date=June 22, 2017 |title=The Inside Story of Texas Instruments' Biggest Blunder: The TMS9900 Microprocessor |language=en |work=[[IEEE Spectrum]] |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-inside-story-of-texas-instruments-biggest-blunder-the-tms9900-microprocessor |access-date=July 8, 2017}}</ref> The [[IBM 801]] RISC processor was also considered, since it was considerably more powerful than the other options, but rejected due to the design constraint to use [[Commercial off-the-shelf
The Intel 8086 architecture had 16 bit registers and used a segment scheme to increase the address space to 20 bits or 1MB of memory which complicated programming but was a big step up from 64K limit of most 8 bit chips. The 8086 was designed as a source code compatible, though not binary compatible, extension of the older 8080 which made it easier to port existing software like BASIC. IBM chose the 8088 variant of the 16 bit [[Intel 8086|8086]] because Intel offered a better price for the former and could provide more units,<ref name="freiberger19820823">{{cite news|author=Freiberger, Paul|date=August 23, 1982|title=Bill Gates, Microsoft and the IBM Personal Computer|page=22|work=InfoWorld|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VDAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22|access-date=January 29, 2015}}</ref> and the 8088's 8-bit bus reduced the cost of the rest of the computer. The 8088 had the advantage that IBM already had familiarity with the 8085 from designing the [[IBM System/23 Datamaster]]. The 62-pin expansion bus slots were also designed to be similar to the Datamaster slots,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.edn.com/whence-came-the-ibm-pc/|title=Whence Came the IBM PC|website=edn.com|date=September 15, 2001|access-date=October 13, 2020|author=John Titus}}</ref> and its keyboard design and layout became the [[IBM Model F|Model F]] keyboard shipped with the PC,<ref name="bradley199009">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1990-09/1990_09_BYTE_15-09_15th_Anniversary_Summit#page/n451/mode/2up | title=The Creation of the IBM PC | work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]] | date=September 1990 | access-date=April 2, 2016 | author=Bradley, David J. | pages=414–420}}</ref> but otherwise the PC design differed in many ways.
The 8088 motherboard was designed in 40 days,<ref>{{Cite news|title=Remembering the Beginning|work=PC Magazine|url=http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s=1754&a=11072,00.asp|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020206040238/http://www.pcmag.com/article/0%2C2997%2Cs%3D1754%26a%3D11072%2C00.asp|archive-date=February 6, 2002|access-date=September 4, 2020}}</ref> with a working prototype created in four months,<ref name=nyt>{{Cite news|last=Sanger|first=David E.|date=August 5, 1985|title=Philip Estridge Dies in Jet Crash; Guided Ibm Personal Computer|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/05/us/philip-estridge-dies-in-jet-crash-guided-ibm-personal-computer.html|access-date=October 4, 2020|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> demonstrated in January 1981. The design was essentially complete by April 1981, when it was handed off to the manufacturing team.<ref>{{Cite web|date=January 23, 2003|title=IBM Archives: The birth of the IBM PC|url=https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html|access-date=October 4, 2020|website=www.ibm.com|language=en-US}}</ref> PCs were assembled in an IBM plant in Boca Raton, with components made at various IBM and third party factories. The monitor was an existing design from [[IBM Japan]]; the printer was manufactured by [[Epson]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WSBVAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA128|title=U-M Computing News|date=1988|publisher=Computing Center|language=en}}</ref>{{
Many of the designers were computer hobbyists who owned their own computers,{{r|morgan198201}} including many Apple II owners, which influenced the decisions to design the computer with an [[open architecture]]<ref name="porter19840918">{{cite news | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq3POofPsBEC | title=Ostracized PC1 Designer Still Ruminates 'Why?' | work=PC Magazine | date=September 18, 1984 | access-date=October 25, 2013 | author=Porter, Martin | page=33}}</ref> and publish technical information so others could create compatible software and [[expansion slot]] peripherals.<ref name="greenwald19830711">{{Cite magazine |last=Greenwald |first=John |date=July 11, 1983 |title=The Colossus That Works |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949693-2,00.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription | magazine=TIME |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080514004334/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,949693-2,00.html |archive-date=May 14, 2008 |access-date=May 18, 2019}}</ref>
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=== Debut ===
The IBM PC debuted on August 12, 1981, after a twelve-month development. Pricing started at $1,565 for a configuration with 16 KB RAM, [[Color Graphics Adapter]], keyboard, and no disk drives. The price was designed to compete with comparable machines in the market.<ref name="ibmpc25">{{cite web|date=January 23, 2003|title=The birth of the IBM PC|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060814072714/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 14, 2006|access-date=June 13, 2014|publisher=IBM Archives}}</ref> For comparison, the Datamaster, announced two weeks earlier as IBM's least expensive computer, cost $10,000.<ref name="
IBM's marketing campaign licensed the likeness of [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s character "[[The Little Tramp]]" for a series of advertisements based on Chaplin's movies, played by Billy Scudder.<ref name="papson1990">{{cite journal|author=Papson, Stephen|date=April 1990|title=The IBM tramp|url=http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC35folder/IBMtramp.html|journal=Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media|issue=35|pages=66–72}}</ref>
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=== Success ===
Sales exceeded IBM's expectations by as much as 800% (9x), with the company at one point shipping as many as 40,000 PCs per month.<ref name="hayes19831024">{{cite news|author=Hayes, Thomas C.|date=October 24, 1983|title=Eagle Computer Stays in the Race|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/24/business/eagle-computer-stays-in-the-race.html|access-date=January 10, 2015}}</ref> IBM estimated that home users made up 50 to 70% of purchases from retail stores.<ref name="burton198303">{{cite news|author=Burton, Kathleen|date=March 1983|title=Anatomy of a Colossus, Part III|page=467|work=PC|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7wCiNAUEuAMC&pg=RA1-PA467|access-date=March 30, 2014}}</ref> In 1983, IBM sold more than 750,000 machines,<ref>{{Cite web|date=August 12, 2006|title=Origin of the IBM PC|url=https://lowendmac.com/2006/origin-of-the-ibm-pc/|access-date=October 4, 2020|website=Low End Mac|language=en-US}}</ref> while other large, reputable companies like Hewlett-Packard, [[Xerox]], and [[Digital Equipment Corporation]] (DEC)'s personal computers were unsuccessful. DEC, one of the companies whose success in competing against IBM had spurred
Software support from the industry grew rapidly, with the IBM nearly instantly becoming the primary target for most microcomputer software development.<ref name="
By 1984, IBM's revenue from the PC market was $4 billion, more than twice that of Apple.<ref name="libes198509">{{cite news|author=Libes, Sol|date=September 1985|title=The Top Ten|page=418|work=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1985-09/1985_09_BYTE_10-09_Homebrewing#page/n401/mode/2up|access-date=October 27, 2013}}</ref> A 1983 study of corporate customers found that two thirds of large customers standardizing on one computer chose the PC, while only 9% chose Apple.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1984-09/1984_09_BYTE_09-09_Guide_to_the_IBM_PCs#page/n33/mode/2up|title=Byte Magazine Volume 09 Number 09 - Guide to the IBM PCs|date=Sep 1984}}</ref> A 1985 ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' survey found that 56% of American companies with personal computers used PCs while 16% used Apple.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pq3POofPsBEC | title=Ostracized PC1 Designer Still Ruminates 'Why?' | magazine=PC Magazine |volume=3| issue=18| date=September 18, 1984 | access-date=October 25, 2013 | author=Porter, Martin | page=33 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
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The IBM PC was highly expandable and upgradeable, but the base factory configuration included:
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
!
|[[Intel 8088]] @ 4.77 MHz
|-
!
|16 KB or 64 KB minimum (expandable to 640 KB)
|-
!
|[[IBM Monochrome Display Adapter]] or<br />[[Color Graphics Adapter|IBM Color Graphics Adapter]]
|-
!
|[[IBM 5151|IBM 5151 monochrome display]]<br />IBM 5153 color display<br />[[Composite video|Composite]]-input television
|-
!
|[[Model F keyboard|IBM Model F]] 83-key keyboard with five-pin connector
|-
!
|Single programmable-frequency square wave with built-in [[PC speaker|speaker]]
|-
!
|Up to two internal 5.25-inch single- or double-sided full-height [[Floppy disk|floppy disk drives]]<ref>Drive capacities varied: Early drives were single-side/double-density (SSDD) and stored 160 KB per floppy, but were soon replaced by double-side/double-density (DSDD) drives which stored 320 KB. The release of DOS 2.0 increased support for storing 9 rather than 8 sectors/track, increasing capacities to 180 KB (SSDD) and 360 KB (DSDD) per floppy. More drives could be attached externally, with certain caveats.</ref><br />Port for attaching to [[magnetic-tape data storage|cassette tape recorder]]<br />Initially no hard drive option, but see text
|-
!
|Five 62-pin [[Industry Standard Architecture|expansion slots]] attached to 8-bit CPU I/O bus<br />IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis with eight (seven usable) extra I/O slots
|-
!
|Optional [[serial port|serial]] and [[parallel port|parallel]] ports
|}
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The PC motherboard includes a second, empty socket, described by IBM simply as an "auxiliary processor socket", although the most obvious use was the addition of an [[Intel 8087]] math coprocessor, which improves [[Floating-point arithmetic|floating-point math]] performance.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1982-01/1982_01_BYTE_07-01_The_IBM_Personal_Computer#page/n41/mode/2up|title=Byte Magazine Volume 07 Number 01 - The IBM Personal Computer|date=January 1982}}</ref>
PC mainboards were manufactured with the first [[memory bank]] of initially [[Mostek]] 4116-compatible,<ref>[https://minuszerodegrees.net/memory/4116.htm 4116 class RAM] One bank used nine of these chips (eight 16-[[kilobit]] chips = 16 kilobytes, plus one chip for parity).</ref> or later 4164-compatible<ref>[https://minuszerodegrees.net/memory/4164.htm 4164 class RAM] – One bank used nine of these chips (eight 64-kilobit chips = 64 kilobytes, plus one chip for parity).</ref> [[
The first 400,000 16 KB mainboards ("16KB-64KB" ID) sold until March 1983 can be upgraded to a maximum of 64 KB onboard without using slots, and the later 64 KB revision ("64KB-256KB" ID) to a maximum of 256 KB on the motherboard.<ref name="feldmann19851001">{{Cite magazine |last=Feldmann |first=Peter |date=1985-10-01 |title=Upgrading Your 64K PC |url=https://archive.org/details/PC-Mag-1985-10-01/page/n146/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date=2025-04-13 |magazine=PC |pages=
=== ROM BIOS ===
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=== Expansion ===
{{
[[File:Personal_computer_-_Museo_scienza_tecnologia_Milano_14617_02.jpg|alt=|thumb|The back of a PC, showing the five expansion slots]]
The expansion capability of the IBM PC was very significant to its success in the market. Some publications highlighted IBM's uncharacteristic decision to publish complete, thorough specifications of the system bus and memory map immediately on release, with the intention of fostering a market of compatible third-party hardware and software.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1982-01/1982_01_BYTE_07-01_The_IBM_Personal_Computer#page/n57/mode/2up|title=Byte Magazine Volume 07 Number 01 - The IBM Personal Computer|date=January 1982}}</ref>
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[[File:Digital Research CP-M-86 for the IBM Personal Computer Version 1.0 720x400.png|thumb|[[Digital Research]] [[CP/M-86]] Version 1.0 for the IBM PC]]
IBM initially announced intent to support multiple operating systems: [[CP/M-86]], [[UCSD P-system|UCSD p-System]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1982-01/1982_01_BYTE_07-01_The_IBM_Personal_Computer#page/n41/mode/2up|title=Byte Magazine Volume 07 Number 01 - The IBM Personal Computer|date=January 1982}} {{verify source |date=November 2020 |reason=This ref was deleted Special:Diff/990243364 by a bug in VisualEditor and later restored by a bot from the original cite located at Special:Permalink/990243296 cite #62 - verify the cite is accurate and delete this template. [[User:
The PC included BASIC in ROM (four 8 KB chips), a common feature of 1980s home computers. Its ROM BASIC supported the cassette tape interface, but PC DOS did not, limiting use of that interface to BASIC only.
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''[[Creative Computing]]'' that year named the PC the best desktop computer between $2,000 and $4,000, praising its vast hardware and software selection, manufacturer support, and resale value.<ref name="ahl198412">{{Cite magazine |last=Ahl |first=David H. |author-link=David H. Ahl |date=December 1984 |title=Top 12 computers of 1984 |url=https://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n12/10_Top_12_computers_of_1984.php |magazine=Creative Computing |access-date=March 16, 2019}}</ref>
Many IBM PCs remained in service long after their technology became largely obsolete. For instance, as of June 2006 (23–25 years after release) IBM PC and XT models were still in use at the majority of U.S. [[National Weather Service]] upper-air observing sites, processing data returned from [[radiosonde
Due to its status as the first entry in the extremely influential PC industry, the original IBM PC remains valuable as a collector's item. {{As of|2007}}, the system had a market value of $50–$500.<ref name="McCracken2007">{{cite web|last1=McCracken|first1=Harry|date=August 27, 2007|title=The Most Collectible PCs of All Time|url=https://www.pcworld.com/article/136242/article.html|access-date=September 25, 2017|website=PCWorld|language=en|archive-date=August 22, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170822070004/http://www.pcworld.com/article/136242/article.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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==Clones==
{{main|Influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market}}
While IBM released documentation for most of the PC's architecture in order to allow third-party manufacturers to produce compatible hardware and software, the [[BIOS]] remained IBM's proprietary intellectual property.<ref>https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/how-compaqs-clone-computers-skirted-ibms-patents-and-gave-rise-to-eisa/ {{Bare URL inline|date=July 2025}}</ref> Because the IBM PC was based on commodity hardware rather than unique IBM components, and because its operation was extensively documented by IBM, creating machines that were fully compatible with the PC offered few challenges other than the creation of a compatible BIOS ROM.
Simple duplication of the IBM PC BIOS was a direct violation of copyright law, but soon into the PC's life the BIOS was reverse-engineered with [[clean-room design]] by companies like [[Compaq]], [[Phoenix Technologies|Phoenix Software Associates]], [[American Megatrends]] and [[Award Software|Award]], who either built their own computers that could run the same software and use the same expansion hardware as the PC, or sold their BIOS code to other manufacturers who wished to build their own machines.
These machines became known as [[IBM PC compatible|IBM compatibles]] or "clones", and software was widely marketed as compatible with "IBM PC or 100% compatible". Shortly thereafter, clone manufacturers began to make improvements and extensions to the hardware, such as by using faster processors like the [[NEC V20]], which executed the same software as the 8088 at a higher speed up to 10 MHz.
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