Influence of the IBM-PC on the PC market

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The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150)

The influence of the IBM-PC on the PC market drove other, different, architectures into extinction in just a few years.^[1] This article uses examples of the systems as they were on the market just before the shakedown, and shortly after, to illustrate what happened to a market that before was dominated by systems using the 6502 or Z80 microprocessors, and CP/M or proprietary operating systems. A 16-bit CPU was available, the Intel 8086, from 1978 but it was not only expensive, but also expensive to use, as it used a 16-bit data bus, that changed when the Intel 8088 came on the market in July 1979.

1 Details
2 Domination of the clones
3 Previous business PCs
4 Systems launched shortly after the IBM-PC
- 4.1 MS-DOS using systems
- 4.2 Non-MS-DOS using systems
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Details

In August 12, 1981 the IBM-PC was released,^[2] which used this, then brand new, Intel 8088 processor, which allowed up to 1 megabyte of RAM while still maintaining an 8-bit-wide path to memory and peripherals. This allowed easy use of the large family of 8-bit-compatible support chips.^[3]^[4] The reputation of IBM for business computing, and the large number of compatible computers and third-party plug-compatible peripherals, allowed the PC and compatibles to make substantial sales in business applications.

Many other companies at the time were also making "business personal computers" with a completely different design, a few still using 8-bit microprocessors. The ones that used Intel x86 processors, (not necessarily 8088's but also 8086's and even 80186's ^[5]) most often used MS-DOS or CP/M-86, just as 8-bit systems with an Intel 8080 compatible CPU had used CP/M.

In the very beginning, when the IBM-PC did not yet dominate the market, these 8086/8088/80186 based systems were not at all duplicates of the IBM-PC design (clones), but just as in the 8-bit CP/M based market had (often very) different designs. Even after a few years manufacturers such as Digital, HP, Sanyo, Tandy, Texas Instruments, Tulip Computers, NEC, Wang Laboratories and Xerox continued to introduce personal computers that were — although x86 and MS-DOS-based — not at all or only slightly hardware-compatible with the IBM-PC.

That was soon to change because of the availability of software written for the IBM-PC that did not work on these systems. For performance reasons, many popular software applications for the IBM-PC bypassed MS-DOS and even the computer's ROM BIOS, and directly wrote to memory and peripherals. For example, a program might directly update the video refresh memory, instead of using MS-DOS calls and device drivers to alter the appearance of the screen. The IBM-PC's coming dominance over the PC market, meant that many such important software packages, (such as the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3, and Microsoft's own Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0) and especially games, that directly accessed the IBM-PC's hardware, bypassing the BIOS, did not work on computers that were even trivially different from the IBM-PC. So the systems that were not 100% IBM-PC compatible also quickly became just as obsolete as the other, completely incompatible, systems listed here. One of the very first computers to wholly adapt the 100% identical architecture strategy was the Compaq portable, in November 1982.^[6]

Domination of the clones

A few years later, virtually all these other business personal computer systems were gone from the market. The only non-100%-IBM-PC compatible systems that remained were those systems that were classified as home computers, and those made by Apple Inc., or business systems that offered a high level of integration (bundled accounting and inventory) or multitasking and multiuser features, not available on the PC.

But home computers still held a part of the personal computer market, so IBM decided to try to capture this market too with the IBM-PC junior Announced November 1983, but first shipped in March 1984.^[7] But this system flopped, and it was only after around 1988 when IBM-PC clones became more multimedia capable with the advent of the cheap copies of the VGA video card, and the sound Blaster-compatible sound card, that the clones also drove the last of the remaining home computers like the Amiga, Atari ST, and MSX2 computers from the market. By 1995 there were practically no more new systems released that were not IBM-PC clones or apple Mac's^[8] Apple's Macintosh remained the sole holdout, in both operating system and hardware architecture for many years, but Macs began to use 'industry standard' PC i/o ports after about 1998, and in 2005 Apple announced plans to switch to Intel processors, making Macintosh hardware essentially identical to that of PC compatibles.

Previous business PCs

More than 50 new business oriented personal computer systems came on the market no more than a year or so before the IBM-PC (August 1981).^[9] Very few of them had switched to a 16- or 32-bit microprocessor, as the general thought was that 8-bit systems were perfectly adequate and the Intel 8086 was too expensive to use, the Intel 8088 that was much cheaper to implement changed that. Some of the more important manufacturers that made them were Apple Inc., Ohio Scientific, Commodore International, Cromemco, Digital Equipment Corporation, Intersystems, Morrow Designs, North Star Computers, Hewlett-Packard, Olivetti, Sharp, Ohio Scientific, Processor Technology, South West Technical Products Corporation, Tandy Corporation and Zenith/Heathkit.

Systems launched shortly after the IBM-PC

MS-DOS using systems

There were dozens of non IBM-PC compatible, but Intel x86-based, personal computers that came on the market around the time, or shortly after, the first (1981) IBM-PC. ^[10] They used the Intel 8088, 8086 or 80186 processor and a version of MS-DOS and software written for the Intel 8086/8088. However, they generally made no attempt whatsoever to copy the IBM-PCs architecture, so these machines had different I/O addresses, different system bus, different video controllers or other (sometimes rather minor) differences from the original PC, to improve upon its design. But as a side effect it meant that software that directly manipulated the hardware would not run correctly. In most cases, the volume of machines with hardware differences from the PC was not large enough to attract support from software manufacturers, though a few computer manufacturers also arranged for compatible versions of popular applications to be developed and sold with their machines. Real 100% compatibles (clones) appeared on the market just a year or so later, when the advantage to do so became impossible to ignore. Some of the more important systems were: ACT Apricot by ACT, the Seequa Chameleon, the HP-150 by Hewlett-Packard, the MBC-550 by Sanyo, the 80186 based Mindset graphics computer, Morrow Designs Morrow Pivot^[11], the MZ-5500 by Sharp, the NCR Decision Mate V by NCR Corporation^[12], the The NorthStar Advantage by Northstar, the PC-9800 system from NEC, the Rainbow 100 from DEC, the TRS-80 Model 2000, Texas Instruments TI Professional^[13], Tulip's Tulip System-1 and the Victor 9000 by Sirius Systems Technology.

Non-MS-DOS using systems

Not all manufacturers switched to an Intel x86+MS-DOS based solution, a few dozen companies completely ignored the existence of the IBM-PC architecture and went their own way.^[14] Some of these systems used a 32-bit microprocessor, the Motorola 68000, others kept on using 8-bit microprocessor(s). Many of these systems were eventually forced off from the market by the onslaught of the IBM-PC clones, although their architecture often was (very) superior to the capabilities of the IBM-PC clones, especially concerning what we now call "multimedia" (audio and video) capabilities. Two exceptions to the extinction of these systems were the Apple Lisa by Apple Inc., that still has descendants in its successor the Apple Macintosh, and the Acorn Computers Acorn Archimedes, (later Risc PC) which microprocessor (specifically designed for the Archimedes) the ARM. still lives on in many hand-held devices and small Linux based systems, and the Risc PC still has descendants like the A9Home, the Iyonix PC and until a few years ago the RiscStation R7500.^[15]