Record 005 · Computing · 1981
50%81.05.C
IBM Personal Computer 5150
IBM
“The reference architecture that cloned an entire industry.”
IBM's open-ish ISA, Intel 8088, and MS-DOS created the Wintel standard. Compaq and others legally cloned it; the PC became a commodity platform.
Standardized office computing for two decades.
PC-compatible industry: hundreds of millions
- Open expansion bus
- BIOS that enabled clones
- MS-DOS as default business OS
