Archives for IBM

IBM PC Celebrates 30th Anniversary

No one c0uld have imagined the revolution that a handful of IBM engineers, working under the strict corporate radar, would do when they invented the IBM Personal Computer 5150 on Aug. 12, 1981.  This article contains the fascinating history of a world-changing technology that happened because 12 engineers decided to think outside the box.  Full Story


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Lesson IBM Can Teach At 100 Years Old

We tend to think of tech companies in terms of the last 20 to 30 years when computing began its exponential growth. Who would have thought that the a Tabulating Company founded in 1911 would last long enough to teach companies like Apple and Micro a lesson or two despite its own challenges?  This is a great article about some of the reasons that IBM has stuck around this long. Makes you wonder what kind of shelf life Apple and Microsoft really have!


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SEMCO: The Future Is Now

(Note from the Editors of Internet Advisor:  We publish this address delivered at the 35th anniversary gathering of SEMCO on 4/10/11 because of some interesting perspectives both on the past and the future of computing.)

The Future is Now!

By Warner Mach

I would like to address six examples to show why the “future is now” in the rapidly developing computer world. SEMCO started in 1976. These are some of the reasons why what was science-fiction in 1976 is reality in 2011. Sometimes we are imbedded in the culture and don’t see the tremendous changes that have occurred:

(1)  Overcoming limitations: We no longer deal with the limitations such as computer speed, limited memory, and limited external storage.

(2)  Telecommunications: The universal Internet as a solution to the communications problem.

(3)  Virtual Worlds: The world of Second Life and multi-user games.

(4)  The “Watson” supercomputer that beat the human Jeopardy contestants.

(5)  Simulation of brain neutrons: Henry Markram and the “Blue Brain” project.

(6)  Seymour Wolfram and a “New Kind of Science.”

So imagine, if you will, that you have stepped out of the time machine from 1976.

(1) Overcoming Limitations:

I think that, for people who have been in …


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Guess what this is!

Hint: picture was  taken in 1956…

It’s a hard disk drive  back in 1956… with 5 MB of storage.  In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the  first ‘SUPER’ computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD  weighed over a ton and stored a ‘whopping’ 5  MB of data.

Do you appreciate your  8 GB memory stick a little more now?


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