IBM PC DOS

IBM PC DOS (Acronym for International Business Machines Corporation Personal Computer Disk Operating System) was an operating system for the IBM Personal Computer, manufactured and sold by IBM from the 1980s to the 2000s. Before version 6.1, PC DOS was an IBM-branded version of MS-DOS. For versions 6.1 and later, development diverged and PC DOS became an independent product.

History

The IBM task force assembled to develop the PC decided that critical components of the machine, including the operating system, would come from outside vendors. This radical break from company tradition of in-house development was one of the key decisions that made the IBM PC an industry standard. But it was done out of necessity, to save time. Microsoft was eventually selected for the operating system.

IBM wanted Microsoft to retain ownership of whatever software it developed, and wanted nothing to do with helping Microsoft, other than making suggestions from afar. According to task force member Jack Sams, "The reasons were internal. We had a terrible problem being sued by people claiming we had stolen their stuff. It could be horribly expensive for us to have our programmers look at code that belonged to someone else because they would then come back and say we stole it and made all this money. We had lost a series of suits on this, and so we didn't want to have a product which was clearly someone else's product worked on by IBM people. We went to Microsoft on the proposition that we wanted this to be their product."

IBM Personal Computer

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981. It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida.

The generic term "personal computer" was in use before 1981, applied as early as 1972 to the Xerox PARC's Alto, but because of the success of the IBM Personal Computer, the term "PC" came to mean more specifically a desktop microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products. Within a short time of the introduction, third-party suppliers of peripheral devices, expansion cards, and software proliferated; the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market was substantial in standardizing a platform for personal computers. "IBM compatible" became an important criterion for sales growth; only the Apple Macintosh family kept significant market share without compatibility with the IBM personal computer.

IBM 3270 PC

The IBM 3270 PC (IBM System Unit 5271), released in October 1983, was an IBM PC XT containing additional hardware which could emulate the behaviour of an IBM 3270 terminal. It could therefore be used both as a standalone computer, and as a terminal to a mainframe.

IBM later released the 3270 AT (IBM System Unit 5273), which was a similar design based on the IBM PC AT. They also released high-end graphics versions of the 3270 PC in both XT and AT variants. The XT-based versions were called 3270 PC/G and 3270 PC/GX and they used a different System Unit 5371, while their AT counterparts (PC AT/G and PC AT/GX) had System Unit 5373.

Technology

The additional hardware occupied nearly all the free expansion slots in the computer. It included a video card which occupied 1-3 ISA slots (depending on what level of graphics support was required), and supported CGA and MDA video modes. The display resolution was 720×350, either on the matching 14-inch color monitor (model 5272) or in monochrome on an MDA monitor.