History of IBM. IBM - brand history

IBM is one of the largest manufacturers of electronics, computer equipment and software widely known in the world. The history of the company has more than 100 years and all these years it has been at the head of technological progress.

Many people know about the production of computers and competition with the Apple Corporation, but among the merits of IBM are many scientific discoveries and inventions introduced into everyday life. Five Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded for developments and discoveries made in IBM Laboratories. This material will tell the story of the founding and formation of the famous corporation, its revolutionary inventions, prospects and much more, which will be very interesting to those who are familiar with IBM.

The corporation was founded in 1896 by Herman Hollerith, an outstanding American engineer and inventor, comes from a family of German migrants. While working as a statistician for the US Census Bureau, he designed and patented a machine that could work with punched cards, reading and analyzing information on them - a tabulator.

The results of the introduction of such an invention were impressive: data that used to take 8 years to process and analyze was now processed in 1 year. Within just a few years, the electric tabulation system began to be used during the census in Canada, France, Italy, and Austria. Realizing the potential of his invention, in 1896 Hollerith founded TMC (Tabulating Machine Company) engaged in the development, production and sales of tabulators.

Counting technology is a good choice

In 1911, TMS became part of a conglomerate that included three more companies that produced scales, mechanical knives for cutting products, punchers for marking punched cards and timers - devices that marked the time of arrival and departure of workers in factories. The company was named CTR (Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation). Its first leader was businessman Charles Ranlette Flint, who bought TMS for US$2.3 million, of which Hollerith received US$1.2 million.

Three years later, in 1914, Flint decided to hand over the reins of the conglomerate to Thomas Watson, who had previously worked for the National Cash Register Company and dealt with cash registers. After a change in top management, CTR began to focus exclusively on the production of products for business, in particular, the production of large tabulation machines. Then he was chosen the main slogan of the company is the word "Think", and Thomas Watson remained the head of the company for 42 years. The strategy he chose made it possible to double the company's turnover in just 4 years and reach an indicator of 9 million dollars, and by 1920 grow to 14 million dollars.

Access to world markets

Along with the development of CTR, the list of its clients was gradually expanding, among which were representatives of various areas of medium and large businesses. Over time, the company entered the markets of Europe, Asia, South America and Australia. There was a need to reflect a new stage of development and position of the company in international markets, so in 1924 the company's management decided to rename the company to IBM - International Business Machines Corporation.

If during the Great Depression, many companies were forced to reduce their employees or completely close the business, then IBM not only continued to develop steadily, but also came up with new social initiatives for its employees. In addition, during this difficult period, a large government order was obtained for tabulating statistical data and population information for the new social insurance system.

New history - new achievements

Already by the beginning of the 1940s, the company's annual profit reaches 38 million dollars, the corporation's representative offices are open in 79 countries of the world, and the number of employees is more than 11,000 people. Gradually IBM turned into a real industrial empire, developing and manufacturing calculating and electric typewriters. Shortly before that, the first engineering laboratory of the company was opened, and already in 1944 one of the first computers "Mark-1" was created, developed jointly with scientists from Harvard University.

Just two years later, IBM introduced the first commercial computer model - the IBM 603 Multiplier, in 1948 a selective-sequential computer appeared that could change recorded programs. In 1955, the basic technology of computer memory was created, which was used for the next 20 years, and a year later - the first computer program for playing chess based on artificial intelligence technologies.

It was a powerful breakthrough in the development of the company, by the end of the 50s the company's turnover had crossed the mark of 1 billion dollars, and almost 90% of the computers used in Europe were produced under the IBM brand. At the same time, there was a change in the management of the company and Thomas Watson Jr. became the president of the corporation until 1970, who would be on the board of directors until 1984.

You can watch the historical stages of development of IBM in the video.

Beginning of the era of personal computers

With the help of computers, software and systems developed by IBM, the first manned flight to the moon was carried out. For a long time, IBM will be directly involved in the work of American space programs, helping to send shuttles into space and control the flights of spacecraft.

In the early 1970s, IBM released a line of machines using "virtual memory" technology, the System/370. At the same time, the company's researchers introduced the concept of relational databases. All this made it possible to increase the income of the corporation up to 7.5 billion dollars a year, and the company already employed 270,000 employees.

In 1981, IBM introduces the personal computer, which had one feature: other companies also took part in its development and creation. Intel made processors, and then little-known Microsoft, which at that time had only 32 employees, developed an operating system called DOS. IBM did not file patents for its new PCs, which subsequently caused competing firms to produce "clones" of the IBM PC and shook the corporation's position in the market.

Way out of the crisis

Supercomputer from IBM, Photo: pixabay

After the company lost the battle for the personal computer market in the 90s, IBM management (at that time Louis Gerstner was the president of the corporation) decided to leave the “user” segment of the market and focus on research and development and the business segment. Therefore, the laptop division was sold (it was acquired by the Chinese company Lenovo), and in return the consulting division was bought, which eventually turned into profitable business. This decision ultimately turned out to be a very far-sighted act, which allowed the company not to depend on the production and sales of personal computers, which soon turned into electronic consumer goods.

Another niche that IBM successfully occupied in new conditions was the development and production of super-powerful computers for scientific laboratories and research centers.

IBM in Russia

IBM came to Russia back in 1974, when the company's first office in the USSR was opened, in which at that time only 3 people worked. In 2006, the IBM scientific and technical laboratory was opened in Moscow, which very quickly became part of the company's scientific network around the world. In Russia, the work of the laboratory is aimed at developing innovative solutions and complex science-intensive projects for key sectors of the Russian economy, as well as work in the field of applied and system programming.

IBM - everything is just beginning

Today the company is led by Virginia Rometty, who started at IBM over 30 years ago as a systems engineer. The company continues to be the leader in computer servers, used by 95% of the world's firms, and continues to lead the rankings of America's largest, most profitable, and most valuable companies. The company employs 3,000 PhDs, owns 12 full-scale research centers and holds the record for the number of patents received.

Correctly chosen strategies, the ability to analyze and control the situation, the ability to identify new directions in time and refocus on them made it possible for IBM to become one of the few companies that not only managed to survive historical upheavals and financial crises but also to maintain its position in the market.

To understand what IBM is today will help video with official page companies.

; abbr. from English. International Business Machines ) is an American company headquartered in Armonk, New York, one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software, as well as IT services and consulting services.

The company's common nickname is big blue, which can be translated from English as "big blue" or "blue giant". There are several versions regarding this nickname. According to one of them, the name comes from mainframes supplied by the company in the 1950s and 1960s. They were the size of a room and were blue in color. Another theory is that the nickname simply refers to the company logo. Another version claims that this name comes from the company's former dress code, which required many workers to wear blue shirts and suits.

Story

1888-1924: Founding of IBM

During the Second World War, the company produced small arms (M1 Carbine and Browning Automatic Rifle).

1950s - projects for the Air Force and airlines

In the 1950s, the company created a large computerized anti-missile system SAGE (eng. Semi Automatic Ground Environment ), which in real time analyzed the data coming from the radars and provided interceptor guidance to the target. Used from the 1950s to the 1980s. In later versions, the system allowed aircraft to be automatically directed to intercept, transmitting data directly to their autopilots.

The era of computers

It is noteworthy that at first the company's management did not attach any importance to this car: a group of only 4 people was engaged in the development (under the leadership of Philip Donald Estridge). And, most notably, contrary to its strong intellectual property principles, IBM did not patent either DOS (with a BASIC language interpreter) or another revolutionary invention of the developers: the BIOS. As a result, smarter third-party developers, using published specifications, made clones of the IBM PC, which led to an explosive growth of the market, but a large share (with a significant volume) was lost to IBM.

Activity

Key divisions of IBM:

• IBM Global Services ( English ) (IGS, consulting division), brought to the company $47.357 billion of income from $91.134 billion in total in 2015;
• IBM Software Group(software development division), brought the company $15.753 billion in revenue in 2015;
• IBM Systems & Technology Group(STG, a division for the production of equipment), brought the company $ 23.857 billion in 2015;
• IBM Watson Group(a division of cognitive computing - grown out of the development of the IBM Watson supercomputer project);
• IBM Research ( English ) ;
• IBM Global Financing.

Software

Influence of IBM on the development of computing technology and software

Significant developments in the information technology industry

• 1943 - Mark I, the first American computer;
• 1946 (September 27) - the first commercial calculator;
• 1956 - the first commercial hard drive;
• 1957 - Fortran compiler released;
• 1959 - the first system for booking airline tickets - Saber (English)Russian;
• 1961 ballhead electric typewriter - IBM Selectric typewriter;
• 1964 - the beginning of mass production of the IBM System / 360 computer, which is considered the founder of a whole class of computers - mainframes;
• 1968 - dynamic RAM;
• 1971 - floppy disk;
• 1974 - SQL language;
• 1981 - IBM PC - a personal computer, the architecture of which has become the de facto standard for the industry since the 80s of the XX century, the open architecture of the IBM PC largely contributed to the huge success of the IBM PC, the mass production of PC-compatible clones by many companies and ultimately advent of the era of personal computers and the computer revolution.

In addition, competition with IBM has served as a powerful impetus for many start-up companies for their own development. At different times, just starting companies Apple, DEC, Intel, Microsoft, Compaq and some others competed with IBM.

IBM also influenced the development of Soviet information technologies, in particular, EC computers were copied from IBM / 360 computers, EC PCs were analogues of IBM personal computers, and the EC OS family of operating systems were at least compatible with the corresponding IBM operating systems.

Literature

• Louis Gerstner. Who said elephants can't dance? Tough Reforms for Company Survival = Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround. - M .: Alpina Publisher, 2014. - 320 p. - ISBN 978-5-9614-4713-2.

Links

International Business Machine Corporation Equipment Software Consulting and -services see also

An excerpt characterizing IBM

“Three times they killed me, three times I was raised from the dead. They stoned me, crucified me... I will rise... rise... rise. Ripped apart my body. The kingdom of God will be destroyed… I will destroy it three times and raise it three times,” he shouted, raising and raising his voice. Count Rostopchin suddenly turned as pale as he had turned pale when the crowd rushed at Vereshchagin. He turned away.
“Sh… go quick!” he shouted at the coachman in a trembling voice.
The carriage rushed at all the legs of the horses; but for a long time behind him Count Rostopchin heard a distant, insane, desperate cry, and before his eyes he saw one surprised, frightened, bloody face of a traitor in a fur coat.
No matter how fresh this memory was, Rostopchin now felt that it was deeply, to the point of blood, cut into his heart. He now clearly felt that the bloody trace of this memory would never heal, but that, on the contrary, the further, the more evil, more painful this terrible memory would live in his heart until the end of his life. He heard, it seemed to him now, the sounds of his own words:
“Chop it, you will answer me with your head!” Why did I say those words! Somehow I accidentally said ... I could not say them (he thought): then nothing would have happened. He saw the frightened and then suddenly hardened face of the dragoon who struck him and the look of silent, timid reproach that this boy in a fox coat threw at him ... “But I didn’t do it for myself. I should have done this. La plebe, le traitre… le bien publique,” ​​[Mob, villain… public good.] – he thought.
At the Yauza bridge, the army was still crowding. It was hot. Kutuzov, frowning and dejected, was sitting on a bench near the bridge, playing with his whip on the sand, when a carriage galloped up to him noisily. A man in a general's uniform, in a hat with a plume, with shifting eyes that were either angry or scared, approached Kutuzov and began to say something to him in French. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutuzov that he had come here because Moscow and the capital were no more and there was only one army.
“It would have been different if your lordship had not told me that you would not surrender Moscow without even giving a battle: all this would not have happened! - he said.
Kutuzov looked at Rostopchin and, as if not understanding the meaning of the words addressed to him, diligently tried to read something special written at that moment on the face of the person speaking to him. Rastopchin, embarrassed, fell silent. Kutuzov shook his head slightly and, without taking his searching gaze off Rostopchin's face, said softly:
- Yes, I will not give up Moscow without giving a battle.
Whether Kutuzov was thinking about something completely different when he said these words, or on purpose, knowing their meaninglessness, he said them, but Count Rostopchin did not answer and hastily moved away from Kutuzov. And a strange thing! The commander-in-chief of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin, took a whip in his hands, went up to the bridge and began shouting to disperse the crowded wagons.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Murat's troops entered Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wirtemberg hussars, behind on horseback, with a large retinue, the Neapolitan king himself rode.
Near the middle of the Arbat, near Nikola Yavlenny, Murat stopped, waiting for news from the advance detachment about the situation in the city fortress "le Kremlin".
Around Murat, a small group of people from the residents who remained in Moscow gathered. Everyone looked with timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired chief adorned with feathers and gold.
- Well, is it himself, or what, their king? Nothing! quiet voices were heard.
The interpreter drove up to a bunch of people.
“Take off your hat… take off your hat,” they started talking in the crowd, addressing each other. The interpreter turned to an old janitor and asked how far it was to the Kremlin? The janitor, listening with bewilderment to the Polish accent alien to him and not recognizing the sounds of the interpreter as Russian, did not understand what was said to him and hid behind the others.
Murat moved up to the interpreter and ordered him to ask where the Russian troops were. One of the Russian people understood what was being asked of him, and several voices suddenly began to answer the interpreter. A French officer from the advance detachment rode up to Murat and reported that the gates to the fortress were closed up and that there was probably an ambush there.
- Good, - said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen of his retinue, he ordered four light guns to be advanced and fired at the gates.
Artillery trotted out from behind the column following Murat and drove along the Arbat. Having descended to the end of Vzdvizhenka, the artillery stopped and lined up on the square. Several French officers disposed of the cannons, placing them, and looked at the Kremlin through a telescope.
In the Kremlin, the bell was heard for Vespers, and this ringing embarrassed the French. They assumed it was a call to arms. Several infantry soldiers ran to the Kutafiev Gate. Logs and plank shields lay in the gates. Two rifle shots rang out from under the gate as soon as the officer with the team began to run up to them. The general, who was standing by the guns, shouted command words to the officer, and the officer with the soldiers ran back.
Three more shots were heard from the gate.
One shot hit a French soldier in the leg, and a strange cry from a few voices was heard from behind the shields. On the faces of the French general, officers and soldiers at the same time, as if on command, the former expression of cheerfulness and calmness was replaced by a stubborn, concentrated expression of readiness for struggle and suffering. For all of them, from the marshal to the last soldier, this place was not Vzdvizhenka, Mokhovaya, Kutafya and Trinity Gates, but it was a new area of ​​a new field, probably a bloody battle. And everyone is ready for this battle. The screams from the gates ceased. The guns were advanced. The gunners blew off their burnt overcoats. The officer commanded "feu!" [fall!], and two whistling sounds of tin cans were heard one after another. Card-shot bullets crackled on the stone of the gate, logs and shields; and two clouds of smoke wavered in the square.
A few moments after the rolling of shots on the stone Kremlin had died down, a strange sound was heard over the heads of the French. A huge flock of jackdaws rose above the walls and, croaking and rustling with thousands of wings, circled in the air. Together with this sound, a lonely human cry was heard at the gate, and from behind the smoke appeared the figure of a man without a hat, in a caftan. Holding a gun, he aimed at the French. Feu! - repeated the artillery officer, and at the same time one rifle and two gun shots were heard. The smoke closed the gate again.
Nothing else moved behind the shields, and the French infantry soldiers with officers went to the gate. There were three wounded and four dead people in the gate. Two men in caftans ran downstairs, along the walls, towards Znamenka.
- Enlevez moi ca, [Take it away,] - said the officer, pointing to the logs and corpses; and the French, having finished off the wounded, threw the corpses down behind the fence. Who these people were, no one knew. “Enlevez moi ca” is only said about them, and they were thrown away and cleaned up afterwards so that they would not stink. One Thiers dedicated several eloquent lines to their memory: “Ces miserables avaient envahi la citadelle sacree, s "etaient empares des fusils de l" arsenal, et tiraient (ces miserables) sur les Francais. On en sabra quelques "uns et on purgea le Kremlin de leur presence. [These unfortunates filled the sacred fortress, took possession of the guns of the arsenal and fired at the French. Some of them were chopped down with sabers, and the Kremlin was cleared of their presence.]
Murat was informed that the path had been cleared. The French entered the gate and began to camp on the Senate Square. Soldiers threw chairs out of the windows of the senate into the square and laid out fires.
Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and were stationed along Maroseyka, Lubyanka, and Pokrovka. Still others were located along Vzdvizhenka, Znamenka, Nikolskaya, Tverskaya. Everywhere, not finding owners, the French were placed not like in the city in apartments, but like in a camp located in the city.
Although ragged, hungry, exhausted and reduced to 1/3 of their former strength, the French soldiers entered Moscow in orderly order. It was an exhausted, exhausted, but still fighting and formidable army. But this was an army only until the moment when the soldiers of this army dispersed to their quarters. As soon as the people of the regiments began to disperse to empty and rich houses, the army was forever destroyed and not residents and not soldiers were formed, but something in between, called marauders. When, after five weeks, the same people left Moscow, they no longer constituted an army. It was a crowd of marauders, each of whom was carrying or carrying with him a bunch of things that he thought were valuable and needed. The goal of each of these people when leaving Moscow was not, as before, to win, but only to keep what they had acquired. Like that monkey who, having put his hand into the narrow throat of a jug and seized a handful of nuts, does not open his fist so as not to lose what he has seized, and this destroys himself, the French, when leaving Moscow, obviously had to die due to the fact that they were dragging with loot, but it was as impossible for him to give up this loot as it is impossible for a monkey to unclench a handful of nuts. Ten minutes after the entry of each French regiment into some quarter of Moscow, not a single soldier and officer remained. In the windows of the houses one could see people in overcoats and boots, laughingly pacing around the rooms; in the cellars, in the cellars, the same people were in charge with provisions; in the yards, the same people unlocked or beat off the gates of sheds and stables; fires were laid out in the kitchens, with rolled up hands they baked, kneaded and boiled, frightened, made laugh and caressed women and children. And there were many of these people everywhere, both in shops and in houses; but the troops were gone.
On the same day, order after order was given by the French commanders to forbid the troops to disperse around the city, to strictly prohibit the violence of the inhabitants and looting, to make a general roll call that very evening; but no matter what measures. the people who had previously made up the army spread out over the rich, abundant in amenities and supplies, empty city. Just as a hungry herd marches in a heap across a bare field, but immediately disperses irresistibly as soon as it attacks rich pastures, so the army dispersed irresistibly throughout a rich city.
There were no inhabitants in Moscow, and the soldiers, like water into the sand, soaked into it and spread like an unstoppable star in all directions from the Kremlin, into which they entered first of all. The cavalry soldiers, entering the merchant's house left with all the good and finding stalls not only for their horses, but also superfluous, nevertheless went side by side to occupy another house, which seemed better to them. Many occupied several houses, writing with chalk what he was doing, and arguing and even fighting with other teams. Not having time to fit yet, the soldiers ran out into the street to inspect the city and, according to the rumor that everything was abandoned, rushed to where they could pick up valuable things for free. The commanders went to stop the soldiers and themselves were involuntarily involved in the same actions. There were shops with carriages in Karetny Ryad, and the generals crowded there, choosing carriages and carriages for themselves. The remaining residents invited the chiefs to their place, hoping that they would be protected from robbery. There was an abyss of wealth, and there was no end in sight; everywhere, around the place that the French had occupied, there were still unexplored, unoccupied places in which, as it seemed to the French, there were even more riches. And Moscow sucked them further and further into itself. Exactly as due to the fact that water is poured onto dry land, water and dry land disappear; in the same way, because a hungry army entered a plentiful, empty city, the army was destroyed, and a plentiful city was destroyed; and there was dirt, fires and looting.

The French attributed the fire of Moscow to au patriotisme feroce de Rastopchine [Rastopchin's wild patriotism]; Russians - to the fanaticism of the French. In essence, there were no such reasons and could not be. Moscow burned down due to the fact that it was placed in such conditions under which any wooden city must burn down, regardless of whether or not there are one hundred and thirty bad fire pipes in the city. Moscow had to burn down due to the fact that the inhabitants had left it, and just as inevitably as a pile of shavings should catch fire, on which sparks of fire would fall for several days. A wooden city, in which there are fires almost every day in the summer with residents, owners of houses and with the police, cannot help but burn when there are no inhabitants in it, but troops live, smoking pipes, laying fires on Senate Square from Senate chairs and cooking themselves two times a day. In peacetime it is necessary for troops to settle down in apartments in villages in a certain area, and the number of fires in this area immediately increases. To what extent should the probability of fires increase in an empty wooden city in which a foreign army is stationed? Le patriotisme feroce de Rastopchine and the savagery of the French are not to blame for anything here. Moscow caught fire from pipes, from kitchens, from bonfires, from the slovenliness of enemy soldiers, residents - not the owners of houses. If there were arson (which is very doubtful, because there was no reason for anyone to set fire, and, in any case, troublesome and dangerous), then arson cannot be taken as a reason, since without arson it would be the same.
No matter how flattering it was for the French to blame the atrocities of Rastopchin and for the Russians to blame the villain Bonaparte or then to put the heroic torch into the hands of their people, one cannot help but see that there could not be such a direct cause of the fire, because Moscow had to burn down, as every village, factory should burn down , any house from which the owners will come out and into which they will be allowed to host and cook their own porridge of strangers. Moscow is burned down by the inhabitants, it is true; but not by those inhabitants who remained in it, but by those who left it. Moscow, occupied by the enemy, did not remain intact, like Berlin, Vienna and other cities, only due to the fact that its inhabitants did not bring bread of salt and keys to the French, but left it.

On the day of September 2, the French invasion, spreading like a star across Moscow, reached the quarter in which Pierre now lived, only in the evening.
Pierre was in a state close to insanity after the last two, solitary and unusually spent days. His whole being was seized by one obsessive thought. He himself did not know how and when, but this thought now took possession of him so that he remembered nothing of the past, did not understand anything of the present; and everything he saw and heard happened before him as in a dream.
Pierre left his home only in order to get rid of the complex confusion of the demands of life that had seized him, and which he, in his then state, but was able to unravel. He went to Iosif Alekseevich's apartment under the pretext of going through the books and papers of the deceased, only because he was seeking solace from life's anxiety - and with the memory of Iosif Alekseevich, a world of eternal, calm and solemn thoughts was associated in his soul, completely opposite to the disturbing confusion in which he felt drawn in. He was looking for a quiet refuge and indeed found it in the office of Joseph Alekseevich. When, in the dead silence of the office, he sat down, leaning on his hands, over the dusty desk of the deceased, in his imagination, calmly and significantly, one after another, the memories of the last days began to appear, especially the Battle of Borodino and that indefinable feeling for him of his insignificance and falsity in comparison with the truth, simplicity and strength of that category of people who are imprinted in his soul under the name they. When Gerasim woke him from his reverie, Pierre had the idea that he would take part in the alleged - as he knew - people's defense of Moscow. And for this purpose, he immediately asked Gerasim to get him a caftan and a pistol and announced to him his intention, hiding his name, to stay in the house of Joseph Alekseevich. Then, in the course of the first solitary and idle day spent (Pierre tried several times and could not stop his attention on Masonic manuscripts), several times he vaguely imagined the thought that had previously come about the cabalistic meaning of his name in connection with the name of Bonaparte; but this thought that he, l "Russe Besuhof, is destined to put an end to the power of the beast, came to him only as one of the dreams that run through his imagination for no reason and without a trace.
When, having bought a caftan (with the aim of only participating in the people's defense of Moscow), Pierre met the Rostovs and Natasha told him: “Are you staying? Oh, how good it is! - the thought flashed through his head that it would really be good, even if they took Moscow, he would stay in it and fulfill what was predetermined for him.
The next day, with one thought not to feel sorry for himself and not to lag behind them in anything, he went with the people beyond the Trekhgornaya outpost. But when he returned home, convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he suddenly felt that what had previously seemed to him only a possibility had now become a necessity and inevitability. He had to, hiding his name, stay in Moscow, meet Napoleon and kill him in order to either die or end the misfortune of all of Europe, which, according to Pierre, came from Napoleon alone.
Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on the life of a German student by Bonaparte in Vienna in 1809 and knew that this student was shot. And the danger to which he exposed his life in the fulfillment of his intention excited him even more.
Two equally strong feelings irresistibly attracted Pierre to his intention. The first was the feeling of the need for sacrifice and suffering in the consciousness of general misfortune, that feeling, as a result of which he went to Mozhaisk on the 25th and drove into the heat of battle, now ran away from his house and, instead of the usual luxury and comforts of life, slept without undressing on hard couch and ate the same meal with Gerasim; the other was that indefinite, exclusively Russian feeling of contempt for everything conventional, artificial, human, for everything that is considered by most people to be the highest good of the world. For the first time, Pierre experienced this strange and charming feeling in the Sloboda Palace, when he suddenly felt that wealth, and power, and life, everything that people arrange and cherish with such diligence - if all this is worth something, then only for the pleasure with which all this can be thrown.
It was that feeling, as a result of which a recruit hunter drinks the last penny, a drunken man breaks mirrors and glasses without any apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him his last money; that feeling, as a result of which a person, committing (in the vulgar sense) crazy deeds, as if tries his personal power and strength, declaring the presence of a higher, standing outside human conditions, judgment over life.
From the very day that Pierre first experienced this feeling in the Sloboda Palace, he was incessantly under his influence, but now he only found him complete satisfaction. In addition, at the present moment, Pierre was supported in his intention and deprived of the opportunity to renounce him by what he had already done along the way. And his flight from home, and his caftan, and the pistol, and his statement to Rostov that he was staying in Moscow - everything would not only lose its meaning, but all this would be contemptible and ridiculous (to which Pierre was sensitive), if after all this, like the others, he left Moscow.
The physical condition of Pierre, as always happens, coincided with the moral. Unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank these days, the absence of wine and cigars, dirty, unchanged linen, half sleepless two nights spent on a short sofa without a bed - all this kept Pierre in a state of irritation close to insanity.

It was already two in the afternoon. The French have already entered Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting, he thought only about his enterprise, going over all its slightest future details. In his dreams, Pierre did not vividly imagine either the very process of striking, or the death of Napoleon, but with unusual brightness and with sad pleasure he imagined his death and his heroic courage.

Photo: © Frickr © alui0000 / Alfred Lui

IBM- this is the company that has made an unimaginably great contribution to the development of the computer industry, which everyone knows without exception. Only here the whole point lies in the fact that hardly anyone will say what exactly IBM became famous for, what IBM PC is and who was the main competitor of this company. We will try to shed some light on the remarkable success story of this corporation. And let's start right at the end.

Once upon a time, IBM produced laptops, its main competitor was the now famous Apple, IBM has a great many different scientific discoveries and developments, as well as achievements in introducing them into everyday life. Five Nobel Prize-winning physicists worked within the walls of IBM, and almost all the technologies known today came from this corporation.

The history of IBM has more than a century. The official year of foundation is considered to be 1896. It was still ten years before the first computers appeared ... The founder of the company is engineer Herman Hollerith. The main activity of IBM, and then it was called TMS, at the initial stage was the production of calculating and analytical machines.

Herman Hollerith founded his own company, inspired by the success of his invention, namely the invention of a switch that allows you to encode information. The invention was a great success, which promised a bright future for the new company. Hollerith's unique machines were chosen by the US government for the 1890 census. And the government, I must say, did not lose. After the census, data processing took only a year, thanks to Hollerith's machines, while before this process took eight years. At first, the TMS tried to produce commercial equipment, but then, when the 1900 census was being prepared, it switched back to the census bureau profile. Then she returned to commercial development again.

When Herman Hollerith founded the company, he was already 39 years old. He was aging, his health was deteriorating. And by 1911 TMS was sold to Charles Flint. It was valued at $2.3 million. Hollerith got just over half of the money from this deal. It was not just a purchase, but a merger of TMC with other companies - ITRC and CSC. Of these three firms, one was formed, which became known as CTR. It also was similarity known to us IBM. And so it happened that IBM has both a grandfather (Herman Hollerith) and a dad (Charles Flint).

If Hollerith was an engineer, a scientist, then Flint, who took control, was a talented financier. He knew how to subtly and accurately determine which financial union would be promising, which company would be better to merge with which, and in which direction to direct investments. His offspring are still functioning, developing and making a profit, having outlived their founder for many years.

The CTR Corporation, established in 1911, was engaged in the production of unique technological equipment. For example, systems for recording working hours, punched card equipment, scales. Three years later, Flint was replaced as director by Thomas Watson, who a year later, in 1915, received the position of president of the corporation. In 1917, the company acquired modern name– IBM (Business Machines Co., Limited). Under this brand, she entered the Canadian market, but the American market - a little later, in 1924.

The company functioned steadily for a quarter of a century, surviving the Great Depression with little or no downsizing. In 1928, IBM released a fundamentally new type of punched card containing 80 columns. This novelty was called the IBM Card and was in great demand for calculating machines and computers for the next few decades.

Is on the reputation of IBM and black spot... The writer Edwin Black published the book "IBM and the Holocaust", which tells that the machines of the corporation were used in Nazi Germany to keep statistics on imprisoned Jews. The book even mentions the codes used. In response to the publication of this book, IBM stated that it was not concerned with the continued use of the equipment, it simply sold the machines. Besides, IBM is not the only American company that has done this kind of business. Well, of course, after the defeat of Germany in the war, it was with the help of IBM equipment that many people and their fates were traced. Of course, the victims or relatives of the victims of the Holocaust and the war demanded an official apology, but IBM disclaimed all responsibility and did not comply with the demands.

IBM continues to function today, conduct scientific research, release new products. The history of this giant does not end, but continues, and who knows what heights IBM will still reach ...

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IBM is known to many today. She left a huge imprint in computer history and even today her pace in this difficult business has not slowed down. The most interesting thing is that not everyone knows what IBM is so famous for. Yes, everyone has heard about the IBM PC, about the fact that it made laptops, that it once seriously competed with Apple. However, among the merits of the blue giant there are a huge number of scientific discoveries, as well as the introduction of various inventions into everyday life. Sometimes many people wonder where this or that technology came from. And all from there - from IBM. Five Nobel laureates in physics received their awards for inventions made within the walls of this company.

This material is intended to shed light on the history of formation and development of IBM. At the same time, we will talk about its key inventions, as well as future developments.

Formation time

IBM's origins date back to 1896, when, decades before the advent of the first electronic computers, the eminent engineer and statistician Herman Hollerith founded a company for the production of calculating machines, christened TMC (Tabulating Machine Company). Mr. Hollerith, a descendant of German emigrants who was openly proud of his roots, was prompted by the success of his first calculating and analytical machines. own production. The essence of the invention of the grandfather of the "blue giant" was that he developed electrical switch, which allows you to encode data in numbers. In this case, the information carriers were cards, in which holes were punched in a special order, after which the punched cards could be sorted mechanically. This development, patented by Herman Hollerith in 1889, made a splash, which allowed the 39-year-old inventor to receive an order for the supply of his unique machines for the US Department of Statistics, which was preparing for the 1890 census.

The success was overwhelming: it took only one year to process the collected data, as opposed to the eight years it took for statisticians from the US Census Bureau to obtain the results of the 1880 census. It was then that the advantage of computational mechanisms in solving such problems was demonstrated in practice, which largely predetermined the future "digital boom". Earned funds and established contacts helped Mr. Hollerith in 1896 to create the company TMC. At first, the company tried to produce commercial machines, but on the eve of the 1900 census, it changed its profile to the production of calculating machines for the US Census Bureau. However, three years later, when the state "trough" was covered, Herman Hollerith again turned his attention to the commercial application of his developments.

Although the company experienced a period of rapid growth, the health of its creator and mastermind was steadily deteriorating. This made him accept the offer of millionaire Charles Flint to buy TMC in 1911. The deal was valued at $2.3 million, of which Hollerith received $1.2 million. In fact, it was not about a simple purchase of shares, but about the merger of TMC with ITRC (International Time Recording Company) and CSC (Computing Scale Corporation), as a result of which the CTR corporation (Computing Tabulating Recording) was born. She became the prototype of modern IBM. And if many people call Herman Hollerith the grandfather of the "blue giant", then it is Charles Flint who is considered to be his father.

Mr. Flint was undeniably a financial genius with the ability to foresee strong corporate alliances, many of which have outlived their creator and continue to play a defining role in their fields. He took an active part in the creation of the Pan-American rubber manufacturer U. S. Rubber, one of the once leading world manufacturers of American Chicle chewing gum (since 2002, already called Adams, part of Cadbury Schweppes). For his success in consolidating US corporate power, he has been called the "Father of Trusts." However, for the same reason, the assessment of its role, in terms of positive or negative impact, but never in terms of significance, is highly ambiguous. Paradoxically, Charles Flint's organizational skills were highly valued in government departments, and he always found himself in places where ordinary officials could not act openly or their work was less effective. In particular, he is credited with participating in a secret project to buy up ships around the world and convert them into military vessels during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Created by Charles Flint in 1911, CTR Corporation produced a wide range of unique equipment, including time tracking systems, scales, automatic meat cutters, and, which turned out to be especially important for creating a computer, punched card equipment. In 1914 post CEO occupied by Thomas J. Watson Sr., and in 1915 he became president of the CTR.

The next major event in the history of CTR was the change of name to International Business Machines Co., Limited, or IBM for short. It happened in two stages. First, in 1917, the company entered the Canadian market under this brand. Apparently, by this she wanted to emphasize the fact that she is now a real international corporation. In 1924, the American division became known as IBM.

The Great Depression and World War II

The next 25 years in IBM's history were more or less stable. Even during the Great Depression in the United States, the company continued its activities at the same pace, with almost no layoffs, which could not be said about other firms.

During this period, several important events for IBM can be noted. In 1928 the company new type punch cards with 80 columns. It was called the IBM Card and has been used for the past few decades by the company's adding machines, and later by its computers. Another significant event for IBM at this time was a major government order to systematize job data for 26 million people. The company itself remembers him as "the biggest settlement transaction It also opened the doors for the blue giant to other government orders, just like when TMC started.

Book "IBM and the Holocaust"

There are several references to IBM's collaboration with the fascist regime in Germany. The data source here is Edwin Black's book "IBM and the Holocaust" ("IBM and the Holocaust"). Its name clearly indicates the purpose for which the blue giant's calculating machines were used. They kept statistics on imprisoned Jews. Even the codes that were used to systematize the data are given: Code 8 - Jews, Code 11 - Gypsies, Code 001 - Auschwitz, Code 001 - Buchenwald, and so on.

However, according to the IBM management, the company only sold equipment to the Third Reich, and how it was used further does not concern them. So, by the way, did many American companies. IBM even opened a factory in Berlin in 1933, which is when Hitler came to power. However, there is a downside to the use of IBM equipment by the Nazis. After the defeat of Germany, thanks to the machines of the blue giant, it was possible to trace the fate of many people. Although this did not prevent various groups of people affected by the war and the Holocaust in particular from demanding an official apology from IBM. The company refused to bring them. Even despite the fact that during the war, its employees who remained in Germany continued their work, even communicating with the company's management through Geneva. However, IBM itself disclaimed any responsibility for the activities of its enterprises in Germany during the war period from 1941 to 1945.

In the United States, during the war period, IBM worked for the government and not always in its direct line of business. Its facilities and workers were busy with the production of rifles (in particular the Browning Automatic Rifle and M1 Carbine), bombing sights, engine parts, etc. Thomas Watson, still in charge of the company at the time, set a nominal profit of 1% on these products. And even this minuscule was not sent to the piggy bank of the blue giant, but to the foundation of a fund to help widows and orphans who lost their loved ones in the war.

There was also an application for calculating machines located in the States. They were used for various mathematical calculations, logistics and other needs of the war. They were no less actively used when working on the Manhattan project, in which the atomic bomb was created.

Big mainframe time

The beginning of the second half of the last century was of great importance for the modern world. Then the first digital computers began to appear. And IBM took an active part in their creation. The very first American programmable computer was the Mark I (full name Aiken-IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator Mark I). The most amazing thing is that it was based on the ideas of Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first computer. By the way, he never completed it. But in the 19th century, this was difficult to do. IBM took advantage of his calculations, shifted them to the technologies of that time, and the Mark I saw the light. It was built in 1943, and a year later it was officially put into operation. The history of "Markov" did not last long. In total, four modifications were produced, the last of which, the Mark IV, was introduced in 1952.

In the 1950s, IBM received another major order from the government to develop computers for the SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) system. This is a military system designed to track and intercept potential enemy bombers. This project allowed the blue giant to gain access to the research of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he worked on the first computer, which could easily serve as prototypes modern systems. So it included a built-in screen, a magnetic memory array, supported digital-to-analogue and analog-to-digital conversions, had some kind of computer network, could transmit digital data over a telephone line, and supported multiprocessing. In addition, so-called "light guns" could be connected to it, which were previously widely used as an alternative to the joystick in consoles and slot machines. There was even support for the first algebraic computer language.

IBM built 56 computers for the SAGE project. The cost of each was $ 30 million at the prices of the 50s. 7,000 employees of the company worked on them, which at that time was 20% of the entire staff of the company. In addition to big profits, the blue giant was able to gain invaluable experience, as well as access to military developments. Later, all this was applied in the creation of computers of the next generations.

The next major event for IBM was the release of the System/360 computer. He is associated with almost the change of an entire era. Before him, the blue giant produced systems based on vacuum tubes. For example, after the aforementioned Mark I, the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) was introduced in 1948, consisting of 21,400 relays and 12,500 vacuum tubes, capable of performing several thousand operations per second.

In addition to SAGE computers, IBM worked on other projects for the military. So the Korean War required the use of faster means of calculation than a large programmable calculator. Thus, a completely electronic computer (not from relays, but from lamps) IBM 701 was developed, which worked 25 times faster than SSEC, and at the same time took up four times less space. Over the next few years, the modernization of tube computers continued. For example, the IBM 650 machine became famous, which produced about 2000 units.

No less significant for today's computer technology was the invention in 1956 of a device called RAMAC 305. It became the prototype of what today is abbreviated as HDD or simply HDD. The first hard drive weighed about 900 kilograms, and its capacity was only 5 MB. The main innovation was the use of 50 aluminum round constantly rotating plates, on which magnetized elements were the information carriers. This made it possible to provide random access to files, which at the same time significantly increased the speed of data processing. But this pleasure was not cheap - it cost $ 50,000 at the prices of that time. Over 50 years, progress has reduced the cost of one megabyte of data on a HDD from $10,000 to $0.00013, based on the average cost of a 1TB hard drive.

The middle of the last century was also marked by the arrival of transistors to replace lamps. The blue giant began its first attempts to use these elements in 1958 with the announcement of the IBM 7070 system. Somewhat later, computers of the 1401 and 1620 models appeared. The first was intended to perform various business tasks, and the second was a small scientific computer used to develop the design of freeways and bridges. That is, both more compact specialized computers and more bulky, but with much higher system speeds, were created. An example of the former is the 1440 model, developed in 1962 for small and medium-sized businesses, and an example of the latter is the 7094, actually a supercomputer of the early 60s used in the aerospace industry.

Another building block on the way to the creation of System / 360 was the creation of terminal systems. Users were allocated a separate monitor and keyboard, which were connected to one central computer. Here is the prototype of the client / server architecture paired with a multi-user operating system.

As is often the case for maximum effective use innovation, you have to take all the previous developments, find their common ground, and then design a new system that uses the best aspects of new technologies. The IBM System/360, introduced in 1964, became such a computer.

It is somewhat reminiscent of modern computers, which can be updated if necessary and to which various external devices can be connected. A new range of 40 peripherals has been developed for the System/360. These included hard drives IBM 2311 and IBM 2314, magnetic tape drives IBM 2401 and 2405, equipment for working with punched cards, word recognition devices, and various communication interfaces.

Another important innovation is unlimited virtual space. Prior to the System/360, this sort of thing cost a fortune. Of course, for this innovation, something had to be reprogrammed, but the result was worth it.

Above we wrote about specialized computers for science and business. Agree, this is somewhat inconvenient for both the user and the developer. System/360 became a general-purpose system that could be used for most tasks. Moreover, a much larger number of people could now use it - simultaneous connection of up to 248 terminals was supported.

The creation of the IBM System/360 was not at all such a cheap undertaking. The computer was only designed for three quarters, for which about a billion dollars were spent. Another $4.5 billion was spent on investing in factories and new equipment for them. In total, five factories were opened and 60,000 employees were hired. Thomas Watson Jr., who succeeded his father as president in 1956, called the project "the most expensive private commercial project in history."

The 70s and the IBM System/370 era

The next decade in the history of IBM was not so revolutionary, but several important events took place. The 70s opened with the release of the System/370. After several modifications to System/360, this system became a more complex and serious redesign of the original mainframe.

The most important innovation of the System/370 is support for virtual memory, that is, in fact, it is an expansion of RAM at the expense of permanent memory. Today, this principle is actively used in modern operating systems of the Windows and Unix families. However, it was not included in the first versions of System/370. IBM made virtual memory widely available in 1972 with the introduction of the System/370 Advanced Function.

Of course, the list of innovations does not end there. The System/370 series of mainframes supported 31-bit addressing instead of 24-bit. By default, dual-processor support was supported, and there was also compatibility with 128-bit fractional arithmetic. Another important "feature" of System/370 is full backward compatibility with System/360. Software, of course.

The company's next mainframe was the System/390 (or S/390), introduced in 1990. It was a 32-bit system, although it retained compatibility with 24-bit System/360 and 31-bit System/370 addressing. In 1994, it became possible to combine several System/390 mainframes into a single cluster. This technology is called Parallel Sysplex.

After System/390, IBM introduced the z/Architecture. Her major innovation- support for 64-bit address space. At the same time, new mainframes were released with a large number of processors (first 32, then 54). The appearance of z/Architecture falls on the year 2000, that is, this development is completely new. Today, within its framework, System z9 and System z10 are available, which continue to enjoy steady popularity. And what's more, they continue to be backwards compatible with System/360 and later mainframes, which is something of a record.

On this we close the topic of large mainframes, for which we talked about their history up to the present day.

Meanwhile, IBM had a conflict with the authorities. It was preceded by the departure of the blue giant's main competitors from the market for large computer systems. In particular, NCR and Honeywall decided to focus on more profitable niche markets. And System/360 was so successful that no one could compete with it. As a result, IBM effectively became a monopolist in the mainframe market.

All this on January 19, 1969 flowed into a trial. Not surprisingly, IBM was accused of violating section 2 of the Sherman Act, which provides for liability for monopolizing or attempting to monopolize the market for electronic computer systems, especially systems designed for business use. The proceedings lasted until 1983 and ended for IBM with the fact that it seriously reconsidered its view of doing business.

It is possible that the antitrust proceedings influenced the "Future Systems project", within which it was supposed to once again combine all the knowledge and experience from past projects (just like in the days of System / 360) and create a new type of computer that will once again surpass everything before made systems. Work on it was carried out between 1971 and 1975. Economic inexpediency is cited as the reason for its closure - according to analysts, it would not have fought back the way it happened with System / 360. Or maybe IBM really decided to hold back a bit because of the ongoing litigation.

Another very important event in the computer world is attributed to the same decade, although it happened in 1969. IBM began to sell services for the manufacture of software and the software itself separately from the hardware component. Today, this surprises few people - even the current generation of domestic users of pirated software is used to the fact that you have to pay for programs. But then, numerous complaints, criticism of the press, and at the same time lawsuits began to pour on the heads of the blue giant. As a result, IBM began to separately sell only application applications, while the software for controlling the operation of a computer (System Control Programming), in fact, the operating system, was free.

And at the very beginning of the 80s, a certain Bill Gates from Microsoft proved that the operating system can also be paid.

Time of small personal computers

Until the 1980s, IBM was very active on large orders. Several times they were made by the government, several times by the military. She supplied her mainframes, as a rule, to educational and scientific institutions, as well as to large corporations. It is unlikely that anyone bought a separate System / 360 or 370 cabinet and a dozen bedside cabinets based on magnetic tapes and already reduced by a couple of times compared to RAMAC 305 hard drives.

The blue giant was above the needs of the average consumer, who needs much less to be completely happy than NASA or the next university. It gave a chance to stand on the feet of the semi-basement Apple with the logo of Newton holding an apple, soon changed to just a bitten apple. And Apple came up with a very simple thing - a computer for everyone. This idea was not supported by either Hewlett-Packard, where Steve Wozniak outlined it, or other large IT companies of that time.

By the time IBM realized it was already too late. The world was already raving about the Apple II, the most popular and successful Apple computer in its history (and not the Macintosh, as many believe). But it's better late than never. It was not difficult to guess that this market is at the very beginning of its development. The result was the IBM PC (Model 5150). It happened on August 12, 1981.

The most striking thing is that this was not the first IBM personal computer. The title of the first belongs to the 5100 model, released back in 1975. It was much more compact than mainframes, had a separate monitor, data storage and keyboard. But it was intended to solve scientific problems. For businessmen and just lovers of technology, he did not fit well. And not least because of the price, which was about $20,000.

The IBM PC not only changed the world, but the company's approach to building computers. Prior to this, IBM made any computer from and to on its own, without resorting to the help of third parties. With the IBM 5150 it turned out differently. At that time, the personal computer market was divided between the Commodore PET, the Atari family of 8-bit systems, the Apple II, and Tandy Corporation's TRS-80s. Therefore, IBM was in a hurry not to miss the moment.

A group of 12 people working in the Florida city of Boca Raton under the direction of Don Estridzha (Don Estrige), were assigned to work on Project Chess (literally "Project Chess"). They completed the task in about a year. One of their key decisions was the use of third-party developments. This simultaneously saved a lot of money and time on their own scientific personnel.

Initially, Don chose the IBM 801 as a processor and an operating system specially developed for it. But a little earlier, the blue giant launched the Datamaster microcomputer (full name System / 23 Datamaster or IBM 5322), which was based on the Intel 8085 processor (a slightly simplified modification of Intel 8088). This was precisely the reason for choosing the Intel 8088 processor for the first IBM PC. Even the expansion slots of the IBM PC coincided with those of the Datamaster. Well, the Intel 8088 required a new DOS operating system, very timely proposed by a small company from Redmond called Microsoft. They did not begin to make a new design for the monitor and printer. The monitor previously created by the Japanese division of IBM was chosen as the first one, and the Epson printer became the printing device.

The IBM PC was sold in various configurations. The most expensive one cost $3005. It was equipped with an Intel 8088 processor running at 4.77 MHz, which, if desired, could be supplemented with an Intel 8087 coprocessor, which made floating point calculations possible. The amount of RAM was 64 KB. 5.25-inch floppy drives were supposed to be used as a device for permanent data storage. One or two of them could be installed. Later, IBM began to supply models that allowed the connection of cassette storage media.

The hard drive in the IBM 5150 could not be installed due to insufficient power supply. However, the company's so-called "expansion module" or Expansion Unit (also known as the IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis) with a 10 MB hard drive. It required a separate power supply. In addition, a second HDD could be installed in it. It also had 5 expansion slots, while the computer itself had 8 more. But to connect the Expansion Unit, it was necessary to use the Extender Card and Receiver Card cards, which were installed in the module and in the case, respectively. Other computer expansion slots were usually occupied by a video card, cards with I / O ports, etc. It was also possible to increase the amount of RAM up to 256 KB.

"Home" IBM PC

The cheapest configuration cost $1565. Together with her, the buyer received the same processor, but there was only 16 KB of RAM. The computer did not come with a floppy drive, and there was also no standard CGA monitor. But there was an adapter for cassette drives and a video card designed to connect to a TV. Thus, an expensive modification of the IBM PC was created for business (where, by the way, it became quite widespread), and a cheaper one - for the home.

But there was another novelty in the IBM PC - base system I/O or BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). It is still used in modern computers, albeit in a slightly modified form. The latest motherboards already contain new EFI firmware or even stripped-down Linux flavors, but it's definitely still a few years before the BIOS disappears.

The architecture of the IBM PC was made open and available to the public. Any manufacturer could make peripherals and software for an IBM computer without purchasing any license. At the same time, the blue giant sold the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual, which contained the complete BIOS source code. As a result, a year later, the world saw the first "IBM PC compatible" computers from Columbia Data Products. Compaq and other companies followed. The ice has broken.

IBM Personal Computer XT

In 1983, when the entire USSR celebrated International Women's Day, IBM released its next "male" product - IBM Personal Computer XT (short for eXtended Technology) or IBM 5160. The novelty replaced the original IBM PC, introduced two years earlier. It was an evolutionary development of personal computers. The processor was still the same, but in the basic configuration there were already 128 KB of RAM, and later 256 KB. The maximum volume has grown to 640 KB.

The XT shipped with one 5.25" drive, a 10MB Seagate ST-412 hard drive, and a 130W power supply. Later, models with a 20 MB hard drive appeared. Well, PC-DOS 2.0 was used as the base OS. To expand the functionality, a new 16-bit ISA bus was used at that time.

IBM Personal Computer/AT

The AT chassis standard is probably remembered by many old-timers in the computer world. They were used until the end of the last century. And it all started again with IBM and its IBM Personal Computer/AT or model 5170. AT stands for Advanced Technology. New system represented the second generation of personal computers of the blue giant.

The most important innovation of the novelty was the use of the Intel 80286 processor with a frequency of 6, and then 8 MHz. Many new features of the computer were associated with it. In particular, it was a complete transition to a 16-bit bus and support for 24-bit addressing, which made it possible to increase the amount of RAM to 16 MB. On the motherboard a battery for powering the CMOS chip with a capacity of 50 bytes appeared. Prior to that, it also did not exist.

For data storage, 5.25-inch drives with support for floppy disks with a capacity of 1.2 MB were now used, while the previous generation provided no more than 360 KB. The hard drive now had a permanent capacity of 20 MB and was twice as fast as the previous model. The monochrome video card and monitors were replaced with adapters that support the EGA standard, capable of displaying up to 16 colors at a resolution of 640x350. Optional for professional work with graphics, it was possible to order a PGC video card (Professional Graphics Controller), costing $4290, capable of displaying up to 256 colors on a screen with a resolution of 640x480, and at the same time supporting 2D and 3D acceleration for CAD applications.

To support all this variety of innovations, the operating system had to be seriously modified, which was released under the name PC-DOS 3.0.

Not a ThinkPad yet, not an IBM PC anymore

We believe that many people know that the first portable computer in 1981 was Osborne 1, developed by Osborne Computer Corporation. It was such a suitcase weighing 10.7 kg and costing $1795. The idea of ​​such a device was not unique - its first prototype was developed back in 1976 at the Xerox PARC research center. However, by the mid-80s, sales of the Osborns had come to naught.

Certainly, good idea quickly picked up by other companies, which, in principle, is in the order of things - just remember what other ideas were "stolen" from Xerox PARC. In November 1982, Compaq announced plans to release a portable computer. Hyperion was released in January - Calculating machine, running MS-DOS and somewhat reminiscent of Osborne 1. But it was not fully compatible with the IBM PC. This title was prepared by Compaq Portable, which appeared a couple of months later. In fact, it was an IBM PC combined in one case with a small screen and an external keyboard. "Suitcase" weighed 12.5 kg and was estimated at over $4,000.

IBM, clearly noticing that it was missing something, quickly set about creating its primitive laptop. As a result, in February 1984, the IBM Portable Personal Computer or IBM Portable PC 5155 was released. The novelty also resembled the original IBM PC in many ways, with the only exception that 256 KB of RAM was installed in it. In addition, it was $700 cheaper than the Compaq counterpart, and at the same time it had improved anti-theft technology - it weighed 13.5 kg.

Two years later, progress has moved a couple of steps forward. IBM did not hesitate to take advantage of this, deciding to make its portable computers something more justifying its title. So in April 1986, the IBM Convertible or IBM 5140 appeared. The Convertible no longer looked like a suitcase, but a large case weighing only 5.8 kg. It cost about half as much - about $2000.

The good old Intel 8088 was used as the processor (more precisely, its updated version 80c88) operating at 4.77 MHz. But instead of 5.25-inch drives, 3.5-inch drives were used, capable of working with disks with a capacity of 720 KB. The amount of RAM was 256 KB, but it could be increased up to 512 KB. But a much more important innovation was the use of a monochrome LCD capable of 80x25 resolution for text or 640x200 and 320x200 for graphics.

But the expansion options for Convertible were much more modest than for IBM Portable. There was only one ISA slot, while the blue giant's first generation of portable PCs allowed you to install almost as many expansion cards as a regular desktop computer (still it wouldn't allow it with such and such dimensions). This circumstance, as well as a passive screen without backlighting and the availability of higher-performance (or models with the same configuration, but available at a much lower price) counterparts from Compaq, Toshiba and Zenith on the market, did not make the IBM Convertible a popular solution. But it was made until 1991, when it was replaced by the IBM PS/2 L40 SX. Let's talk about PS/2 in more detail.

IBM Personal System/2

Until now, many of us use keyboards and sometimes even mice with a PS / S interface. However, not everyone knows where he came from and how this abbreviation stands for. PS/2 stands for Personal System/2, a computer introduced by IBM in 1987. He belonged to the third generation of the blue giant's personal computers, whose purpose was to regain lost ground in the PC market.

The IBM PS/2 failed. Its sales were supposed to be high, but the system was very innovative and closed, which automatically raised its final cost. Consumers preferred more affordable IBM PC clones. Nevertheless, the PS / 2 architecture left a lot behind.

The main PS/2 operating system was IBM OS/2. For her, new PCs were equipped with two BIOSes at once: ABIOS (Advanced BIOS) and CBIOS (Compatible BIOS). The first was required to boot OS/2, and the second was for backward compatibility with IBM PC/XT/AT software. However, for the first few months PS/2 shipped with PC-DOS. Later, Windows and AIX (one of the Unix variants) could be installed as an option.

Together with PS / 2, a new bus standard was introduced to expand the functionality of computers - MCA (Micro Channel Architecture). It was supposed to replace ISA. In terms of speed, the MCA corresponded to the PCI introduced a few years later. In addition, it had many interesting innovations, in particular, it supported the ability to exchange data directly between expansion cards, or simultaneously between multiple cards and a processor via a separate channel. All this later found application in the PCI-X server bus. MCA itself never gained popularity due to IBM's refusal to license it, so that clones would not appear again. In addition, the new interface was not compatible with ISA.

In those days, a DIN connector was used to connect the keyboard, and a COM connector for the mouse. New IBM personal computers offered to replace them with more compact PS / 2. Today, these connectors are already disappearing from modern motherboards, but then they were also available only to IBM. Only a few years later they "went to the masses." The point here is not only the closed nature of the technology, but also the need to refine the BIOS in order to fully support this interface.

PS / 2 made an important contribution to the video card market. Prior to 1987, there were several types of monitor connectors. Often they had many contacts, whose number was equal to the number of colors displayed. IBM decided to replace them all with one universal D-SUB connector. Through it, information was transmitted about the depth of red, green and blue flowers, bringing the number of displayed shades to 16.7 million. In addition, it has become easier for software to work with one type of connector than to support several.

Another innovation from IBM is video cards with a built-in frame buffer (Video Graphics Array or VGA), which today is called video card memory. Then its volume in PS / 2 was 256 KB. This was enough for a resolution of 640x480 with 16 colors, or 320x200 with 256 colors. The new video cards worked with the MCA interface, so they were only available for PS/2 computers. Nevertheless, the VGA standard has become widespread over time.

Instead of large and not the most reliable 5.25-inch floppy disks, IBM decided to use 3.5-inch drives. The company was the first to start using them as the main standard. The main novelty of the new computers was the doubled capacity of floppy disks - up to 1.44 MB. And by the end of PS/2, it had doubled to 2.88 MB. By the way, PS / 2 drives had one rather serious bug. They couldn't tell a 720 KB floppy from a 1.44 MB floppy. Thus it was possible to format the first as the second. In principle, it worked, but it threatened to lose data, and after such an operation, only another PS / 2 computer could read the information from the floppy disk.

And one more novelty PS / 2 - 72-pin SIMM RAM modules instead of outdated SIPP. After a few years, they became the standard for all personal and not so personal computers, until they were replaced by DIMM strips.

So we've come to the end of the 80s. In these 10 years, IBM has done much more for the average consumer than in all the past years to this year. Thanks to her personal computers, we can now assemble our own computer, and not buy ready-made, as Apple would like. Nothing prevents us from installing any operating system on it, except for Mac OS, which, again, is available only to owners of Apple computers. We got freedom, and IBM lost the market, but earned the glory of a pioneer.

By the early 1990s, the blue giant was no longer the dominant player in the computer world. Intel then ruled the processor market, Microsoft dominated the application software segment, Novell was successful in networking, Hewlett-Packard in printers. Even hard drives invented by IBM began to be produced by other companies, as a result of which Seagate was able to come out on top (already in the late 80s and holds this championship to this day).

Not everything went well in the corporate sector. Invented by IBM employee Edgar Codd in 1970, the concept of relational databases (in a nutshell, this is a way to display data in the form of two-dimensional tables) began to gain wide popularity in the early 80s. IBM was even involved in the creation of the SQL query language. And here's the pay for the work - Oracle became number one in the field of DBMS by the beginning of the 90s.

Well, in the personal computer market, it was replaced by Compaq, and eventually also by Dell. As a result, IBM President John Akers (John Akers) began the process of reorganizing the company, dividing it into autonomous divisions, each of which was engaged in one specific area. Thus, he wanted to improve production efficiency and reduce production costs. This is how IBM met the last decade of the 20th century.

Crisis time

The 1990s got off to a pretty good start for IBM. Despite the decline in the popularity of its personal computers, the company still made a big profit. The largest in its history. It is a pity that this was only at the end of the 80s. Later, the blue giant simply did not catch the main trends in the computer world, which led to not the most pleasant consequences.

Despite the success of personal computers in the penultimate decade of the last century, IBM continued to receive most of its income from mainframe sales. But the development of technology has made it possible to switch to the use of more compact personal computers, and with them to large computers based on microprocessors. In addition, regular ones sold at lower margins than mainframes.

Now, you only need to add up the decline in sales of your main profitable product, the loss of your position in the personal computer market, and the failure of Novell's network technology market to be surprised by $1 billion in losses in 1990 and 1991. And 1992 turned out to be a new record - $ 8.1 billion in losses. It was the largest corporate annual loss in US history.

Is it any wonder that the company began to "move"? In 1993, Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. took over as president. His plan was to change the current situation, for which he radically restructured the company's policy, focusing the main divisions on the provision of services and software development. In the field of hardware, IBM certainly had a lot to offer, but because of the many computer manufacturers and the presence of other technology companies, it did not. All the same, there will be someone who will offer a cheaper and no less functional product.

As a result, in the second half of the decade, IBM expanded its software portfolio with applications from Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, and Rational. Well, she also continued to develop her own relational DB2 DBMS.

ThinkPad

Despite the crisis of the 90s, the blue giant nevertheless presented one popular product. It was a line of ThinkPad laptops that still exists today, albeit under the auspices of Lenovo. It was presented in the face of three models 700, 700C and 700T in October 1992. Mobile computers were equipped with a 10.4-inch screen, 25 MHz Intel 80486SLC processor, 120 MB hard drive, Windows 3.1 operating system. Their cost at the same time was $4350.

IBM ThinkPad 701 with butterfly keyboard

A little about the origin of the name of the series. The word "Think" (think) was imprinted on the leather-bound IBM corporate notebooks. One of the participants in the next generation mobile PC project suggested adding a "Pad" (keyboard, keypad) to it. At first, not everyone accepted ThinkPad, citing the fact that so far the name of all IBM systems has been numerical. However, in the end, ThinkPad went as the official name of the series.

The first ThinkPad laptops became very popular. Within a fairly short time, they have collected more than 300 awards from various publications for high quality workmanship and multiple design innovations. The latter in particular include the "butterfly keyboard", which was slightly raised and stretched in width to make it more convenient to work. Later, with an increase in the diagonal of the screen of mobile computers, it was no longer needed.

For the first time, TrackPoint was used - a new type of manipulator. Today, it is still installed in ThinkPad laptops and many other enterprise-class mobile PCs. In some models, an LED was installed on the screen to illuminate the keyboard in the dark. For the first time, IBM integrated an accelerometer into a laptop that detected a fall, after which the hard drive heads parked, which greatly increased the likelihood of data being saved during a strong impact. ThinkPads were the first to use fingerprint scanners, as well as a built-in TPM module for data protection. Now all this is used to some extent by all laptop manufacturers. But do not forget that thanks for all these "charms of life" should be IBM.

While Apple was paying big bucks to have Tom Cruise save the world in Mission: Impossible with the new PowerBook, IBM was really pushing humanity's progress into a brighter future with its ThinkPad laptops. For example, the ThinkPad 750 flew on the shuttle Endeavor in 1993. Then the main task of the mission was to repair Hubble telescope. The ThinkPad A31p has been used on the ISS for a long time.

Today, the Chinese company Lenovo continues to support many of the IBM traditions. But that's the story of the next decade.

New age time

Started in the mid-1990s, the company's change of course has reached its apogee in the current decade. IBM continued to focus on providing consulting services, creating new technologies for the sale of licenses for them, as well as developing software, while not forgetting about expensive equipment - the blue giant has not left this area so far.

The final stage of the reorganization took place between 2002 and 2004. In 2002, IBM acquired the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and also sold its hard drive division to Hitachi. Thus, the blue giant abandoned the further production of hard drives, which he himself had invented half a century earlier.

IBM is not going to leave the business of supercomputers and mainframes yet. The company continues to fight for the first places in the Top500 ranking and continues to do so with enough high proportion success. In 2002, a special program was even launched with a budget of $ 10 billion, according to which IBM created the necessary technologies to be able to provide access to supercomputers to any company almost immediately after a request was received.

While the blue giant has been doing well with large computers so far, not everything has gone well with small personal computers. As a result, 2004 was marked as the year of the sale of IBM's computer business to the Chinese company Lenovo. The last to go were all developments in personal systems, including the popular ThinkPad series. Lenovo even got the right to use IBM brand within five years. IBM itself received $650 million in cash and $600 million in stock in return. Now she owns 19% of Lenovo. At the same time, the blue giant also continues to sell servers. Still not to continue, being in the top three largest players in this market.

So what happened in the end? In 2005, about 195,000 employees worked for IBM, among whom the company noted 350 as "outstanding engineers", and 60 people bore the honorary title of IBM Fellow. This title was introduced in 1962 by then-president Thomas Watsan to distinguish the best employees of the company. Usually no more than 4-5 people received IBM Fellow per year. Since 1963, there have been about 200 such employees in total. Of these, in May 2008, 70 people worked.

With such a serious scientific potential, IBM has become one of the leaders in innovation. Between 1993 and 2005, the blue giant received 31,000 patents. At the same time, in 2003 he set a record for the number of patents received by one company in a year - 3415 pieces.

Ultimately, today IBM has become less accessible to the general consumer. In fact, the same thing happened before the 80s. For 20 years the company worked with retail products, but still returned to its roots, although in a slightly different incarnation. But still, its technologies and developments reach us in the form of devices from other manufacturers. So the blue giant remains with us further.

Afterword time

At the end of the article, we would like to present short list the most important discoveries made by IBM during its existence, but not mentioned above. After all, it is always nice to be amazed once again that one or another well-known company is behind the creation of another favorite electronic toy.

The beginning of the era of high-level programming languages ​​is attributed to IBM. Well, maybe not to her personally, but she took a very active part in this process. In 1954, the IBM 704 computer was introduced, one of the main "chips" of which was the support of the Fortran language (short for Formula Translation). The main goal of its creation was to replace the low-level assembly language with something more human-readable.

In 1956, the first Fortran reference manual appeared. And in the future, his popularity continued to grow. Mainly due to the inclusion of a language translator in the standard software package for IBM computer systems. This language has become the main language for scientific applications on long years, and also gave impetus to the development of other high-level programming languages.

We have already mentioned IBM's contribution to the development of databases. In fact, thanks to the blue giant, today most of the sites on the Internet that use relational DBMS operate. They do not hesitate to use the SQL language, which also came out of the bowels of IBM. In 1974, it was introduced by company employees Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce. It was then called SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language), and after that the abbreviation was shortened to SQL (Structured Query Language), since "SEQUEL" was a trademark of the British airline Hawker Siddeley.

Probably, some still remember how they ran games from cassette recorders on their home (well, or not home) EU computer. But IBM was one of the first to use magnetic tape for data storage. In 1952, together with the IBM 701, it introduced the first magnetic tape drive that could write and read data.

Diskettes. Left to right: 8", 5.25", 3.5"

Floppy disks also appeared thanks to IBM. In 1966, it introduced the first drive with a metal recording head. Five years later, she announced the beginning of the mass distribution of floppy disks and drives for them.

IBM 3340 "Winchester"

The slang word "hard drive" for a hard drive also came from the bowels of IBM. In 1973, the company introduced the IBM 3340 "Winchester" hard drive. It got its name from the head of the development team, Kenneth Haughton, who assigned the IBM 3340 the internal name "30-30", derived from the name of the Winchester 30-30 rifle. "30-30" directly indicated the capacity of the device - two plates of 30 MB each were installed in it. By the way, it was this model that first received a great commercial success in the market.

We should also thank IBM for our modern memory. It was she who in 1966 invented the technology for the production of dynamic memory, where only one transistor was allocated for one bit of data. As a result, it was possible to significantly increase the density of data recording. Probably, this discovery led the company's engineers to create a special ultra-fast data buffer or cache. In 1968, this was first implemented in the System / 360 Model 85 mainframe and could store up to 16 thousand characters.

The architecture of PowerPC processors also appeared largely thanks to IBM. And although it was developed jointly by Apple, IBM and Motorola, it was based on the IBM 801 processor, which the company planned to install in its first personal computers in the early 80s. At first, the architecture was supported by Sun and Microsoft. However, other developers did not seek to write programs for it. As a result, Apple remained its only user for almost 15 years.

In 2006, Apple abandoned PowerPC in favor of the x86 architecture, and in particular Intel processors. Motorola withdrew from the alliance in 2004. Well, IBM still did not curtail its development, but directed them in a slightly different direction. A few years ago, so much text was written about the Cell processor that it was enough for several books. Today it is used in the console Sony PlayStation 3, and Toshiba has installed a simplified version of it in its flagship Qosmio Q50 multimedia notebook.

On this, perhaps, we will round off. If you wish, you can find many other amazing discoveries of IBM, and at the same time write a lot of words about its future projects, but then you should already boldly start writing a separate book. After all, the company conducts research in various fields. She has hundreds of active projects, including such as nanotechnology and holographic data carriers, speech recognition, communication with a computer using thoughts, new ways to control a computer, and so on - one listing will take several pages of text. So we put an end to this.

P.S. And at the very end, a little about the origin of the term "blue giant" (or "Big Blue"), as IBM is often called. As it turned out, the company itself has nothing to do with it. Products with the word "Blue" in the title appeared only in the 90s (in particular, in a series of supercomputers), and the press has been calling it the "blue giant" since the early 80s. Officials IBM speculates that this may have come from the blue lid of its mainframes that were made in the 60s.

IBM is one of the world's largest manufacturers and suppliers of hardware and software. The company has existed for more than a hundred years, throughout this period it has led technological progress. Largely thanks to her, we have magnetic stripe cards, hard drives and personal computers.

We'll talk about US air defense, the first programmable computer, alternative uses of manufacturing (for rifles), the first mass-produced IBM PCs, the ThinkPad line of laptops, and inventions that have been part of our lives for years to come.

The invention of the electric tabulating system allowed Hollerith to speed up the process of counting the results of the census. If eight years were spent on counting in 1880, then in 1890, thanks to the tabulator, the bureau took one year to do this. After the US Census, Hollerith received a professorship at Columbia University. Over the following years, his invention was used to conduct censuses in several countries, including Austria, Canada, Italy and France. Realizing the potential of his invention, Hollerith opened the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. TMC sells its cars to railway companies, government agencies, and conducts international trade.

In Russia, until the end of the 19th century, there were no accurate data on the population. These figures are important for the state, at least in order to calculate the number of citizens liable for military service, as well as to solve a host of other issues of governing the country.

In August 1895, the director of the Center for the Statistical Committee, N. A. Troinitsky in Bern, at a session of the International Statistical Institute, presented to his colleagues the Regulations on the general census in Russia, scheduled for 1897. Hollerith also spoke at this session. A year after this meeting, Hollerith was invited to Russia to sign a contract and conduct a census. The Tabulating Machine Company, which Hollerith opened in 1896, leased 35 previously used machines to Russia and sold 70 tabulators with sorting machines and 500 perforators. To reduce the cost of transporting equipment, some of the parts were produced locally, in St. Petersburg.

The complete set consisted of one tabulator, which summarized the features of the same name, thirty perforators for preparing punched cards, two sorting machines for grouping cards. The census sheets were sent to the headquarters, in this case to the Center for Statistical Control of the Russian Empire. More than two and a half thousand people worked here in several departments. In the markup, opposite the answers, they put the cipher of the sign, in the test they checked if there were any errors, and in the punch they transferred the ciphers to punched cards, each of which corresponded to one person. The last section, the engine room, did the counting with tabulators and sorting machines. Here the results were calculated and the punched cards were grouped. Unfortunately, in Russia the census took eight years due to the negligence of some of the people in charge of the process.

The last tabulator that was used during the census in the Russian Empire. Photo: Polytechnic Museum

In 1901, in parallel with TMC, the Computing Scale Company was opened in the USA, which produced scales. These scales made life easier for sellers, allowing them to quickly calculate the cost of goods. The third "pillar" of the corporation was the International Time Recording Company, a manufacturer of time tracking systems.

All three companies were merged on June 16, 1911 to form Computing Tabulating Recording. She sold scales, time attendants, punchers for marking punched cards. The American businessman Charles Ranlette Flint was responsible for the merger. He bought TMC for US$2.3 million, of which Herman Hollerith received US$1.2 million.

In 1914, Thomas Watson took over as CEO and the company began to specialize only in large tabulation machines.

The slogan of the company was the word "Think". Within four years of Watson's work, the company's revenues doubled and reached $ 9 billion. The company has been actively working with Europe, South America, Asia and Australia. In 1924, another renaming of the company takes place - CTR changes its name to International Business Machines. At the same time, the assortment is expanding, but electric tabulators remain the main product for many years. Their company produced and sold until 1976. IBM tabulators were also used in the USSR.

For many years, IBM has worked with both government agencies and businesses. Government orders allowed the company, even during the Great Depression of 1935-1939, to pay salaries to employees and continue research. During the war production sites IBM was busy with weapons - the company produced the M1 carbine and the Browning automatic rifle.

Tech giant IBM was at the forefront of the personal computer. It all started, of course, not with ThinkPad laptops, but with Mark I. This computer is considered the first American programmable computer. It was built in 1941. The developers, led by US Navy Captain 2nd Rank Howard Aiken, an IBM engineer, used the work of Charles Babbage.

The computer, assembled from 765,000 parts, reaches a length of 17 meters, its height is 2.5 meters. The car weighs 4.5 tons. Engineers used 800 kilometers of wires. Every second, the machine could perform three additions or subtractions. Multiplication took 6 seconds and division took 15.3 seconds. The huge machine replaced twenty operators with adding machines.

One of the major government orders was to work with the SAGE missile defense system. In 1949, the US military was convinced that Soviet Union has bombers that can fly over the North Pole and deliver a bomb to the very center of the country. The Americans received such intelligence data after the USSR tested its first nuclear bomb. The country needed a system early detection, but the air defense at that time collected data from radar systems manually.

To rectify the situation, in 1950, the US Air Force entered into a contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to conduct research in the field of air defense and develop a prototype system. The result of the work was the system, which means "semi-automatic ground environment".

Computers became the basis of the system. Their production was taken over by IBM, earning $ 500 million over the life of the project. Up to 8,000 employees were involved in the project, i.e. 25% of the entire workforce of the company. Although IBM could have worked on software, the company did not undertake this: it was simply not clear where the 2,000 programmers could be put after the end of the project.

The system was controlled by up to 100 operators, in total up to 24 headquarters were placed throughout the country. The screens displayed digitized data, with which the operator worked with a light pen. The XD-1 machine weighed 250 tons, consumed 3 megawatts of electricity and had 49,000 lamps in its design. Every second, the XD-1 computer performed up to 75 thousand operations, which is ten times higher than analogues of that time.

The SAGE system worked until 1983.

In 1956, the son of Thomas Watson, Thomas Watson Jr., took over as head of IBM. The company focused on the development and production of computers and software. A team led by John Backus in the period from 1954 to 1957 developed the world's first high-level programming language with a translator and subsequently developed up to the present day - FORTRAN. This language helped the company increase sales of computers: it made working with them more “friendly” for users.

The first language standard was developed in 1966 and was called Fortran 66. In 1977, the Fortran 77 standard was released. In 1991, Fortran 90 appeared. Fortran 95 was created in 1997. Today, the latest version of the language standard is Fortran 2008.

Punch card for FORTRAN language

If we talk about supercomputers, then for 2016 IBM with Sequoia and Mira occupies the fourth and sixth positions in the TOP-10.

In 2005, the company bought IBM's personal PC division for $1.25 billion and became the third largest company in that market. In 2012, Lenovo took first place in personal computer shipments with the purchase of IBM's computer business. In September 2014, IBM sold the x86 server business.

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