IBM is known to many today. She left a huge imprint on 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 is 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 everything from there is from IBM. Five Nobel laureates in physics received their prizes for inventions made within the walls of this company.
This material is intended to shed light on the history of the formation and development of IBM. At the same time, we will talk about her key inventions, as well as future developments.
Formation time
The origins of IBM go back to 1896, when, decades before the appearance of the first electronic computers, the outstanding engineer and statistician Herman Hollerith founded a company for the production of calculating machines, christened TMC (Tabulating Machine Company). To this, Mr. Hollerith, a descendant of German émigrés, who was openly proud of his roots, was prompted by the success of his first calculating machines of his own production. The essence of the invention of the grandfather of the "blue giant" was that he developed an electrical switch that allows data to be encoded in numbers. In this case, the carriers of information 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, created a sensation, which allowed the 39-year-old inventor to receive an order for the supply of his unique machines to the US Department of Statistics, which was preparing for the 1890 census.
The success was overwhelming: processing the collected data took only one year, as opposed to the eight years it took statisticians from the US Census Bureau to obtain the results of the 1880 census. It was then that the advantage of computing mechanisms in solving such problems was demonstrated in practice, which in many respects predetermined the future "digital boom". The funds earned and the contacts established helped Mr. Hollerith in 1896 to create the TMC company. At first, the company tried to produce commercial cars, but on the eve of the 1900 census, it was repurposed to produce calculating machines for the US Census Bureau. However, three years later, when the state "trough" was closed, Herman Hollerith again turned his attention to the commercial application of his developments.
Although the company was going through a period of rapid growth, the health of its creator and mastermind steadily deteriorated. This made him, in 1911, accept the offer of the millionaire Charles Flint to buy TMC. 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 (Computing Tabulating Recording) corporation was born. She became the prototype of modern IBM. And if Herman Hollerith is called by many 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 a knack for anticipating strong corporate alliances, many of which have outlived their creators and continue to play a defining role in their respective 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, it is part of Cadbury Schweppes). For his success in consolidating US corporate power, he was 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 very ambiguous. Paradoxically, Charles Flint's organizational abilities 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 ships around the world and convert them into warships during the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Created by Charles Flint, CTR Corporation in 1911 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, punch card equipment. In 1914, Thomas J. Watson Sr. took over as CEO, and in 1915 he became president of 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. This 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, IBM became known as the American division.
The time of the Great Depression and World War II
The next 25 years in the history of IBM were more or less stable. Even during the Great Depression in the United States, the company continued its activities at the same pace, almost without laying off employees, which could not be said about other firms.
During this period, several important events can be noted for IBM. In 1928 the company introduced a new type of punch card with 80 columns. It was called the IBM Card and has been used by the company's calculating machines over the past several decades, and then by its computers. Another significant event for IBM during this time was a large government order to systematize data on jobs for 26 million people. The company itself recalls it as "the largest settlement transaction of all time." It also opened the doors for the blue giant to other government orders, just like in the early days of TMC.
Book "IBM and the Holocaust"
There are several references to IBM's collaboration with the Nazi regime in Germany. The data source here is the book "IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black. Its name clearly says for what purpose the calculating machines of the blue giant were used. They kept statistics on the Jews imprisoned. There are even codes that were used to organize the data: Code 8 - Jews, Code 11 - Gypsies, Code 001 - Auschwitz, Code 001 - Buchenwald, and so on.
However, according to the IBM leadership, the company only sold equipment to the Third Reich, and how it was used further does not concern them. By the way, many American companies have done this. IBM even opened a plant in Berlin in 1933, when Hitler came to power. However, there is also a downside to the Nazis' use of IBM equipment. After the defeat of Germany, thanks to the machines of the blue giant, it was possible to trace the fate of many people. However, this did not stop 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 in spite of the fact that during the war its employees, who remained in Germany, continued their work, even communicating with the company management through Geneva. However, IBM itself disclaimed any responsibility for the activities of its enterprises in Germany during the war 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 manufacturing facilities and workers were busy producing rifles (notably the Browning Automatic Rifle and M1 Carbine), bomb scopes, engine parts, etc. Thomas Watson, who was still at the head of the company, set a nominal profit margin for this product at 1%. And even this minuscule was sent not 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.
It was also used for calculating machines located in the States. They were used for various mathematical calculations, logistics and other war needs. They were no less actively used when working on the Manhattan project, within the framework of which the atomic bomb was created.
Time of large mainframes
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 computing machine. By the way, he never finished building it. But in the 19th century, it 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 released, 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. It is a military system designed to track and intercept potential enemy bombers. This project allowed the blue giant to gain access to research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he worked on the first computer, which could easily serve as the prototypes of modern systems. So it included a built-in screen, a magnetic memory array, supported digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversions, had a kind of computer network, could transmit digital data via a telephone line, and supported multiprocessing. In addition, it was possible to connect to it the so-called "light pistols", previously widely used as an alternative to the joystick for consoles and slot machines. There was even support for the first algebraic computer language.
IBM built 56 computers for the SAGE project. Each was worth $ 30 million at 50s prices. 7000 employees of the company worked on them, which at that time was 20% of the entire staff of the company. In addition to large 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. It 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 in 1948, the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) was introduced, consisting of 21,400 relays and 12,500 vacuum tubes, capable of performing several thousand operations per second.
In addition to computers, SAGE IBM has worked on other projects for the military. Thus, the Korean War required the use of faster means of calculation than a large programmable calculator. This is how a completely electronic computer was developed (not from relays, but from lamps) IBM 701, which worked 25 times faster than SSEC, and at the same time took up four times less space. Over the next several years, the modernization of lamp computers continued. For example, the IBM 650 became famous, which produced about 2000 units.
No less significant for today's computer technology was the invention in 1956 of a device called the RAMAC 305. It became the prototype of what today is abbreviated as HDD or just a hard disk. The first hard drive weighed about 900 kilograms, and its capacity was only 5 MB. The main innovation consisted in the use of 50 aluminum circular continuously rotating plates on which the information carriers were magnetized elements. 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 the time. For 50 years, progress has reduced the cost of one megabyte of data on an HDD from $ 10,000 to $ 0.00013, if we take 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 highways and bridges. That is, both more compact specialized computers and more bulky, but with a much higher system speed were created. An example of the former is the model 1440, developed in 1962 for small and medium-sized businesses, and an example of the latter is the 7094, which is actually a supercomputer of the early 60s used in the aerospace industry.
Another brick on the way to creating System / 360 was the creation of terminal systems. Users were allocated a separate monitor and keyboard, which were connected to one central computer. Here's a prototype of a client / server architecture paired with a multiuser operating system.
As is often the case for the most effective use of innovations, one has to take all previous developments, find their points of contact, 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, if necessary, can be updated and to which you can connect various external devices. A new range of 40 peripherals has been developed for the System / 360. These included IBM 2311 and IBM 2314 hard drives, IBM 2401 and 2405 magnetic tape drives, punch card equipment, text recognition devices, and various communication interfaces.
Another important innovation is unlimited virtual space. Before System / 360, this kind of thing was a tidy sum. Of course, for this innovation, something had to be reprogrammed, but the result was worth it.
We wrote above about specialized computers for science and business. Agree, this is somewhat inconvenient for both the user and the developer. System / 360 became a versatile system that could be used for most tasks. Moreover, a much larger number of people could now use it - the simultaneous connection of up to 248 terminals was supported.
Building the IBM System / 360 wasn't all that cheap. The computer was only designed for three quarters, on which about a billion dollars was spent. Another $ 4.5 billion was spent on investment in factories, new equipment for them. In total, five factories were opened and 60 thousand 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."
70s and the era of the IBM System / 370
The next decade in IBM history was less revolutionary, but several important events did take place. The 70s opened with the release of System / 370. After several System / 360 modifications, this system has become a more complex and serious rework of the original mainframe.
The most important innovation of System / 370 is support for virtual memory, that is, in fact, this is an expansion of RAM at the expense of constant. Today this principle is actively used in modern operating systems of the Windows and Unix families. However, in the first versions of System / 370 its support was not included. 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 course.
The next mainframe of the company was System / 390 (or S / 390), introduced in 1990. It was a 32-bit system, although it retained compatibility with System / 360 24-bit addressing and System / 370 31-bit addressing. In 1994, it became possible to combine multiple System / 390 mainframes into one cluster. This technology is called Parallel Sysplex.
After System / 390, IBM introduced the z / Architecture. Its main innovation is 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, System z9 and System z10 are available within its framework and continue to enjoy sustained popularity. What's more, they continue to maintain backward compatibility with System / 360 and later mainframes, which is a record of its kind.
That's where we close the topic of large mainframes, for which we told about their history up to the present day.
Meanwhile, IBM is facing a conflict with the authorities. It was preceded by the departure of the main competitors of the blue giant from the market of large computer systems. In particular, NCR and Honeywall decided to focus on more profitable niche market segments. And System / 360 was so successful that no one could compete with it. As a result, IBM effectively became a monopoly in the mainframe market.
All this on January 19, 1969 spilled over into a trial. As expected, IBM was accused of violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which provides for liability for monopolization, or an attempt to monopolize the market for electronic computer systems, especially systems intended for use in business. The proceedings lasted until 1983 and ended for IBM with the fact that it seriously reconsidered its way 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 on past projects (just like in the days of System / 360) and create a new type of computer that will once again surpass everything previously systems made. Work on it was carried out between 1971 and 1975. The reasons for its closure are called economic inexpediency - 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 credited to the same decade, although it happened in 1969. IBM began selling software manufacturing services and software separately from hardware. Today, this hardly surprises anyone - even the modern generation of domestic users of pirated software are used to the fact that you have to pay for programs. But then numerous complaints, press criticism, and at the same time lawsuits began to pour on the heads of the blue giant. As a result, IBM began to sell separately only application applications, while the software for controlling the 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 an 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. As a rule, she supplied her mainframes to educational and scientific institutions, as well as to large corporations. It is unlikely that anyone bought a separate System / 360 or 370 cabinet for themselves at home and a dozen of magnetic tape-based storage cabinets and already reduced a couple of times compared to the 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 another university. This gave a chance to stand on the feet of a semi-basement Apple company with the logo in the form of Newton holding an apple, soon replaced by a simply 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 it was presented by Steve Wozniak, or other large IT companies of the time.
It was too late when IBM realized it. The world has already admired the Apple II - the most popular and successful Apple computer in its history (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.
Most strikingly, 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, with a separate monitor, data storage and keyboard. But it was intended to solve scientific problems. For businessmen and simply lovers of technology, he did not fit well. And not least because of the price, which was around $ 20,000.
The IBM PC changed not only the world, but also the company's approach to building computers. Before that, IBM made any computing machine inside and out independently, without resorting to the help of third parties. It turned out differently with the IBM 5150. At that time, the personal computer market was split between the Commodore PET, the Atari family of 8-bit systems, the Apple II, and the Tandy Corporation's TRS-80s. Therefore, IBM was in a hurry to seize the moment.
A 12-person team based in Boca Raton, Florida, led by Don Estrige, was commissioned 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 our own scientific personnel.
Initially, Don chose the IBM 801 and a specially designed operating system for his processor. But a little earlier, the blue giant released 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 is precisely the reason for choosing the Intel 8088 processor for the first IBM PC. The IBM PC even had expansion slots that matched those of the Datamaster. Well, Intel 8088 demanded a new operating system DOS, very timely proposed by a small company from Redmond called Microsoft. They did not make a new design for the monitor and printer. The monitor, previously created by the Japanese division of IBM, was chosen as the first, and the printer was made by Epson as a printing device.
The IBM PC was sold in a variety of 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 permanent storage device. One or two of them could be installed. Later, IBM began to supply models that allowed the connection of cassette media.
The hard drive in the IBM 5150 could not be installed due to insufficient power supply. However, the company has a so-called "Expansion Unit" or Expansion Unit (also known as the IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis) with a 10MB hard drive. He required a separate power source. 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 required to use Extender Card and Receiver Card, which were installed in the module and in the case, respectively. The other expansion slots of the computer were usually occupied by the 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 $ 1,565. Together with it, the buyer received the same processor, but the RAM was only 16 KB. The computer did not come with a floppy drive, nor was there a standard CGA monitor. But there was an adapter for cassette drives and a video card focused on connecting 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 modification for the home.
But there was also another novelty in the IBM PC - the basic input / output system or BIOS (Basic Input / Output System). It is still used in modern computers today, albeit in a slightly modified form. Newer motherboards already contain newer EFIs or even simplified Linux flavors, but it will definitely be a few years before BIOS disappears.
The architecture of the IBM PC has been made open and publicly available. Any manufacturer could make peripherals and software for an IBM computer without purchasing any license. At the same time, the blue giant was selling the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual, where the full BIOS source code was posted. 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, presented two years earlier. It represented the evolutionary development of personal computers. The processor was still the same, but the basic configuration already had 128 KB of RAM, and later 256 KB. The maximum size has grown to 640 KB.
The XT ships with one 5.25-inch drive, a 10MB Seagate ST-412 hard drive, and a 130W PSU. 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 at that time 16-bit ISA bus was used.
IBM Personal Computer / AT
The AT chassis standard is probably remembered by many old-timers of the computer world. They were used until the end of the last century. It all started again with IBM and its IBM Personal Computer / AT or model 5170. AT stands for Advanced Technology. The new system was the second generation of the blue giant's personal computers.
The most important innovation of the novelty was the use of an Intel 80286 processor with a frequency of 6, and then 8 MHz. Many new computer capabilities 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 bring the amount of RAM up to 16 MB. The motherboard now has a battery to power the CMOS chip with a capacity of 50 bytes. Before that, she was not there either.
For data storage, 5.25-inch drives with support for 1.2 MB floppies were now used, while the previous generation provided a volume of no more than 360 KB. The hard drive now had a permanent capacity of 20MB and was twice as fast as its predecessor. The monochrome video card and monitors were replaced by adapters that support the EGA standard, capable of displaying up to 16 colors at a resolution of 640x350. Optionally, for professional work with graphics, it was possible to order a PGC video card (Professional Graphics Controller), worth $ 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 came out under the name PC-DOS 3.0.
Not ThinkPad yet, not IBM PC
We believe that many people know that the first portable computer in 1981 was the Osborne 1, developed by the Osborne Computer Corporation. It was such a suitcase weighing 10.7 kg and costing $ 1795. The idea of \u200b\u200bsuch 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.
Of course, other companies quickly picked up the successful idea, 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 laptop. In January, Hyperion was released, a computer running MS-DOS and somewhat reminiscent of Osborne 1. But it was not fully compatible with the IBM PC. This title was awarded to 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. The "suitcase" weighed 12.5 kg and was valued at over $ 4000.
IBM, clearly noticing that it was missing something, quickly got down to creating its primitive laptop. As a result, the IBM Portable Personal Computer or IBM Portable PC 5155 saw the light in February 1984. The novelty also resembled the original IBM PC in many ways, with the only exception that it had 256 Kbytes of RAM. In addition, it was $ 700 cheaper than its Compaq counterpart, and at the same time possessed improved anti-theft technology - a weight of 13.5 kg.
Two years later, progress has moved a couple more 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 the price - about $ 2000.
The good old Intel 8088 (or rather its updated version 80c88), clocked at 4.77 MHz, was used as a processor. 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 to 512 KB. But a far more important innovation was the use of a monochrome LCD display capable of 80x25 for text or 640x200 and 320x200 for graphics.
The Convertible's expandability, on the other hand, was much more modest than the IBM Portable. There was only one ISA slot, while the first generation of the blue giant's portable PCs allowed installing almost as many expansion cards as a regular desktop computer (it still would not allow for such and such dimensions). This circumstance, as well as the passive display without backlighting and the availability of more productive (or models with the same configuration, but available at a significantly lower price) analogs from Compaq, Toshiba and Zenith on the market did not make the IBM Convertible a popular solution. But it was produced until 1991, when it was replaced by the IBM PS / 2 L40 SX. Let's talk more about PS / 2.
IBM Personal System / 2
Until now, many of us use keyboards and even sometimes mice with PS / S interface. However, not everyone knows where he came from and how this abbreviation stands. PS / 2 is 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 reclaim lost positions in the PC market.
The IBM PS / 2 has failed. Its sales were supposed to be high, but the system was very innovative and closed, which automatically raised its final cost. Consumers preferred the more affordable clones of the IBM PC. Nevertheless, the PS / 2 architecture left behind a lot.
The main PS / 2 operating system was IBM OS / 2. For her, new PCs were equipped with two BIOS at once: ABIOS (Advanced BIOS) and CBIOS (Compatible BIOS). The first was required to boot OS / 2, and the second was required for backward compatibility with IBM PC / XT / AT software. However, for the first few months the PS / 2 came 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. The speed of 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 got widespread due to IBM's refusal to license it so that clones would not appear again. In addition, the new interface was not ISA compliant.
In those days, a DIN connector was used to connect a keyboard, and a COM connector for a mouse. New IBM personal computers suggested replacing them with more compact PS / 2. Today these connectors are 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 update the BIOS to provide full support for this interface.
PS / 2 made an important contribution to the video card market. Before 1987, there were several types of monitor connectors. They often had many contacts, the number of which was equal to the number of displayed colors. IBM decided to replace all of them with one universal D-SUB connector. It transmitted information about the depth of red, green and blue colors, bringing the number of displayed shades to 16.7 million. In addition, it has become easier for the software to work with one type of connector than to support several.
Another new product from IBM is video cards with an integrated frame buffer (Video Graphics Array or VGA), which is now 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 and 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 the large and not very reliable 5.25-inch floppy disks, IBM decided to use 3.5-inch drives. The company was the first to use them as the main standard. The main novelty of the new computers is the doubled capacity of floppy disks - up to 1.44 MB. And by the end of PS / 2 it doubled to 2.88 MB. By the way, there was one rather serious error in PS / 2 drives. They could not tell the difference between a 720K floppy disk and a 1.44 MB floppy disk. Thus, it was possible to format the first as the second. In principle, it worked, but it threatened with the danger of data loss, and even after such an operation, only another PS / 2 computer could read information from the floppy disk.
And one more PS / 2 novelty - 72-pin SIMM modules instead of outdated SIPP. A few years later, they became the standard for all personal and not so computers, until they were replaced by DIMM strips.
So we come to the end of the 80s. IBM has done much more for the average consumer in these 10 years than in all the years prior to this. Thanks to her personal computers, we can now independently assemble a computer for ourselves, and not buy a ready-made one 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 fame of a pioneer.
By the early 90s, the blue giant was no longer the dominant player in the computer world. Intel then ruled the ball in the processor market, Microsoft dominated the application software segment, Novell succeeded in networking, Hewlett-Packard in printers. Even the 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 retains this primacy to this day).
In the corporate sector, not everything went well. Invented by IBM employee Edgar Codd in 1970, the concept of relational databases (in a nutshell, it is a way to display data in the form of two-dimensional tables) began to gain widespread popularity in the early 80s. IBM even helped create the SQL query language. And so the payment for labor - number one in the field of DBMS by the beginning of the 90s became Oracle.
Well, in the personal computer market, it was ousted by Compaq, and over time also by Dell. Eventually, IBM President John Akers began the process of reorganizing the company, dividing it into autonomous divisions, each of which focused on one specific area. In this way, he wanted to improve production efficiency and reduce costs. This is how IBM met the last decade of the 20th century.
Time of crisis
The nineties started off pretty well for IBM. Despite the decline in popularity of its personal computers, the company still made big profits. The largest in its history. It is a pity that it was only at the end of the 80s. Later, the blue giant simply failed to grasp the main trends in the computer world, which led to not very pleasant consequences.
Despite the success of personal computers, in the penultimate decade of the last century, IBM continued to generate most of its revenue 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, the regular ones sold at lower margins than the mainframes.
Now it is enough to add up the drop in sales of the main profitable product, the loss of its position in the personal computer market, and at the same time the failures in the network technology market, which Novell successfully occupied, so as not to be surprised at the losses of $ 1 billion in 1990 and 1991. And 1992 turned out to set 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 has started 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 area of \u200b\u200bhardware, IBM certainly had a lot to offer, but due to the multitude of computer manufacturers and the presence of other technology companies, it did not. Anyway, 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. She also continued to develop her own relational DBMS, DB2.
ThinkPad
Despite the crisis of the 90s, the blue giant presented one popular product. It was the ThinkPad line of laptops that still exist today, albeit under the patronage of Lenovo. It was introduced in the face of three models 700, 700C and 700T in October 1992. Mobile computers were equipped with a 10.4-inch screen, a 25 MHz Intel 80486SLC processor, a 120 MB hard drive, and a Windows 3.1 operating system. At the same time, their cost was $ 4350.
IBM ThinkPad 701 with butterfly keyboard
A little about the origin of the series name. The word "Think" was printed on leather-bound IBM corporate notebooks. One of the participants in the new generation mobile PC project suggested adding a "Pad" (keyboard, keypad) to it. At first, the ThinkPad was not accepted by everyone, arguing that until now the name of all IBM systems was numerical. However, in the end, ThinkPad went as the official name of the series.
The first ThinkPad notebooks 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, includes the "butterfly keyboard", which raised slightly and stretched in width to make it easier to work. Later, with the increase in the diagonal of the screen of mobile computers, the need for it disappeared.
For the first time, TrackPoint was used - a new kind of manipulator. It is still found in ThinkPad notebooks and many other enterprise-class mobile PCs today. 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, which detected a fall, after which the hard drive heads parked, which significantly increased the likelihood of data safety in case of a strong impact. ThinkPad pioneered the use of fingerprint scanners and built-in TPM for data protection. Now all this is used to one degree or another by all laptop manufacturers. But do not forget that IBM should be grateful for all these "delights of life".
While Apple was paying big bucks for Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible to save the world with a new PowerBook, IBM was really pushing human progress towards a brighter future with its ThinkPads. For example, the ThinkPad 750 flew in 1993 on the Endeavor shuttle. Then the main task of the mission was to repair the Hubble telescope. The ThinkPad A31p has been on the ISS for a long time.
Today, the Chinese company Lenovo continues to support many of IBM's traditions. But this is already the story of the next decade.
Time of the new century
The company's change of course, which began in the mid-1990s, has reached its climax in the current decade. IBM continued to focus on providing consulting services, creating new technologies for licensing them, and 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 in the process 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 struggle for first places in the Top500 ranking and continues to do so with a fairly high degree of success. In 2002, a special $ 10 billion program was even launched, according to which IBM created the necessary technologies to be able to provide access to supercomputers to any company almost immediately upon request.
While the blue giant's big computers are doing fine so far, small PCs have not done well. As a result, 2004 is marked as the year of the sale of the IBM computer business to the Chinese company Lenovo. The latter went all the developments on personal systems, including the popular ThinkPad series. Lenovo even won the right to use the IBM brand for five years. IBM itself received $ 650 million in cash and $ 600 million in shares in return. It now 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, IBM had about 195,000 employees, among whom 350 were recognized as "outstanding engineers", and 60 were IBM Fellows. This title was introduced in 1962 by then President Thomas Watsan to highlight the best people in the company. Typically, an IBM Fellow received no more than 4-5 people a year. Since 1963, there have been about 200 such employees. 70 of them worked in May 2008.
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. Moreover, 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, it was the same before the 80s. For 20 years the company has been working with retail products, but still returned to its origins, albeit in a slightly different guise. But all the same, its technologies and developments reach us in the form of devices from other manufacturers. So the blue giant stays with us further.
Afterword time
At the end of this article, we would like to provide a short list of the most significant discoveries made by IBM during its existence, but not mentioned above. After all, it is always pleasant to be amazed once again that this or that well-known company is behind the creation of your next favorite electronic toy.
The beginning of the era of high-level programming languages \u200b\u200bis attributed to IBM. Well, maybe not for her personally, but she took a very active part in this process. In 1954, the IBM 704 computer was presented, one of the main "chips" of which was support for the Fortran language (short for Formula Translation). Its main goal was to replace 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 became the main language for scientific applications for many 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, most of the sites on the Internet that use relational DBMSs operate today. They are not shy about using the SQL language, which also came from the bowels of IBM. It was introduced in 1974 by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce. It was called then SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language), and then 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 (or not home) EU computer. IBM was one of the first to use magnetic tape for data storage. In 1952, together with the IBM 701, she introduced the first magnetic tape drive that could write and read data.
Floppy disks. Left to right: 8 ", 5.25", 3.5 "
Floppy disks also came from IBM. In 1966, she introduced the first metal-head drive. 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 hard drive also comes from the depths 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 gave the IBM 3340 the internal name "30-30", derived from 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, this particular model was the first to receive 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 data recording density. Probably, this discovery prompted 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 the PowerPC processors also originated largely from IBM. 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 1980s. The architecture was initially supported by Sun and Microsoft. However, other developers were reluctant to write programs for it. As a result, Apple remained its only user for almost 15 years.
In 2006, Apple ditched the PowerPC in favor of the x86 architecture, specifically Intel processors. Motorola left the alliance in 2004. Well, IBM still did not curtail its development, but sent them in a slightly different direction. Several years ago, so much text was written about the Cell processor that it would be enough for several books. Today it is used in the Sony PlayStation 3, and Toshiba has installed a simplified version of it in its flagship Qosmio Q50 multimedia laptop.
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 feel free to start making 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, communicating with a computer using thoughts, new ways of controlling 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 him. Products with the word "Blue" in the name appeared only in the 90s (in particular in a series of supercomputers), and the press has called it "blue giant" since the early 80s. IBM officials speculate that this may have come from the blue cover of its mainframes, which were produced in the 60s.
General information about MS DOS
Operating systems for personal computers during the existence of this class of computers since 1975 have undergone significant development, accompanied by an increase in the bit capacity of personal computers (PCs) from 8 to 32, expansion of capabilities, and improvement of the user interface (Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 Some types of OS for personal computers
| PC | ||
| 8-bit | 16-bit | 32-bit |
| P / M-80, MSX DOS, MikpoDOS, Mikros-80 | MS-DOS, RAFOS, OS DBK, INMOS | UNIX, XENIX, Windows 95, OS / 2 |
8-bit operating systems retain their importance as the operating systems of the simplest educational and household (gaming) computers. Due to the limited address space of the RAM (65 KB), serious professional use of such computers is impossible.
16-bit IBM-compatible computers make up a significant part of the professional personal computer fleet in our country. The most common operating system for these computers is the single-user single-tasking MS DOS (from MicroSoft - abbreviated to MS; DOS is the English abbreviation of the name "disk operating system"). The first version of this OS was created simultaneously with the personal computer IBM PC in 1981 and from external devices supported only floppy disks with 160 KB floppy disks. Version 2.0 is associated with the appearance of the PC XT modification, it also supported hard drives up to 10 MB, a tree-like file structure. Popular over the years version 3.3 (1987) - to support PC AT. This OS modification addresses 640 KB of RAM, which at the time of its appearance was a progressive moment, and then became a factor holding back the progress of software. Modern versions of MS DOS have overcome the limitations on the size of random access memory (RAM), have many new commands, contain built-in device drivers, graphical shell, help system, etc.
The main structural components of MS DOS are as follows:
Basic Input / Output System (BIOS);
Boot Loader (SB);
Device drivers (i.e. programs that support their operation);
Basic module;
Command processor (also called command interpreter);
DOS utilities (helper programs).
Let's briefly describe the main components. The BIOS is stored in ROM. This program is written directly in machine codes; when the computer is turned on, it is automatically read into RAM, launched for execution and makes a cursory check of the operability of the main computer devices. Then the BIOS searches the disks for the operating system startup program (programs bootstrap). The BIOS also has functions to support standard peripherals such as the display and keyboard.
The bootstrap program found on the disk by the BIOS accesses drives A, B, and so on in sequence. until it finds the SB program - bootloader... This program checks for the presence of the operating system kernel on the disk, which consists of files named ibmio.sys - a BIOS extension file and command.com - a command processor, loads them into RAM and launches the first of these programs for execution. It additionally tests hardware, performs DOS configuration (standard in the absence of a config.sys file - configuration file or non-standard in accordance with the contents of the config.sys file), connects the necessary drivers, etc. Next, this program sets some instructions on how to handle interrupts (interrupt vectors) and transfers control to the base DOS module, which continues to set the rules for processing interrupts and then loads the command processor into RAM and transfers control to it.
A user working with DOS without shell programs or additional interface systems communicates directly with the command processor. The operating mode is interactive, i.e. the user issues a command, the OS executes and waits for the next command. The way to issue commands is quite archaic - you just need to type the text of the command on the keyboard, for which you need to remember most of the commands, and for those rarely encountered - use the reference book (either in the form of a book or built into DOS).
Command processor, being launched, it first searches for and executes autorun program (autoexec.bat file), if present. This program is created by the user from DOS commands in order to perform some routine actions to create a comfortable environment for getting started. For example, if you get the Norton Commander panel on the screen when you start your computer, it’s only because this program “autorun” is provided for by those who created the autoexec.bat file. The next action of the command processor is to issue an invitation to the user to enter a command on the screen, which looks, for example, like this: C\u003e (if DOS was loaded from the C drive).
On August 12, 1981, IBM Corporation announced the release of a new hardware and software complex - the IBM 5150 personal computer.
On August 12, 1981, the IBM corporation announced the release of a new hardware and software complex - the IBM 5150 personal computer (later called the IBM PC). No one then knew that this particular date would become the starting point of a new stage in the development of computing technology - the era of personal computers, and this model would be the industry standard for many years.
I must say that the IBM 5150 was by no means the first computer for personal use. For several years, the market has been selling equipment from Apple, Altair and a number of other manufacturers. And IBM itself has made attempts to create such devices. One of her projects to "put computing in the hands of one user" called "SCAMP" (Special Computer, APL Machine Portable) started back in 1973, and its result in the form of the IBM 5100 Portable Computer appeared two years later. Twelve modifications of this computer (with RAM ranging from 16 to 64 KB) were sold at prices ranging from 9 to 20 thousand dollars.
The IBM 5150 PC was much more affordable - in the version with 16KB memory (expandable up to 256KB) it cost (included with the printer) only $ 1,565.
True, he did not have a hard disk, but he could work with 5-inch floppy disks. The device was developed in record time - within one year by a team of twelve people led by Don Estridge, who has since been known as the "father of the IBM PC".
Why did the release of the IBM 5150 become the starting point for the PC era? For roughly the same reason why Christopher Columbus is considered the "discoverer of America." After all, there is information that some seafarers from Europe used to cross the Atlantic. But they all discovered America “for themselves,” and Columbus discovered it for the entire Old World.
There are two main reasons for the success of the IBM 5150.
The first is the time factor. In the early 80s, the market was ripe for widespread use of individual computers (largely thanks to the pioneers, the same Apple and Altair), and IBM managed to find the optimal combination of "price - functionality", in which the PC was both useful for work and quite affordable cost.
The second is a qualitatively new business model for creating and promoting a new device to the market. In order to accelerate its design, IBM for the first time widely used the principle of "outsourcing" to develop individual elements of the PC. Everyone knows about two such components of the IBM 5150 - they are the 16-bit Intel 8088 processor with a clock frequency of 4.77 MHz (a modified version of the 8086 processor) and the PC-DOS operating system, which was a slightly modified version of MicroSoft Disk Operating System 1.0, created by the young by a Seattle company *. But even more important was the fact that the car was built on the principles of "open architecture". This meant that other companies could make compatible PCs. This is how it is described in the book by Yu. L. Polunov "From the abacus to the computer" published by the "Russian Edition" in 2004 (volume II, p. 327):
“At the presentation, Estridge made a statement that surprised (if not shaken) the computer world. Contrary to its traditional “closed nature”, the corporation announced its intention to publish a technical manual with electrical circuits and PC specifications, as well as source codes for BIOS and diagnostic programs: “We will provide information to the existing“ cottage ”industry to enable it to develop expansion boards, we will be happy any suggestions from software companies ””.
So IBM can be considered the ideological founder of the Open Source concept. True, at first third-party manufacturers could do this by acquiring a BIOS license from IBM, but quite soon independent developments of compatible BIOS appeared, and the production of PC clones could be performed without royalties to the Blue Giant.
The combination of these two points (a good launch time and a new business model) was a chain reaction (manufacturer competition leads to lower prices - more demand - more suppliers - etc.), and IBM PC-compatible computers over several years filled the whole world.
The main phenomenon of the PC is that for the first time a complex technical solution got out of the control of the author company and began to develop under the control of an unorganized IT community, consisting of tens of thousands of large and small IT companies: manufacturers of electronic components, assemblers of computers , software developers. Therefore, when we say that the PC opened a new stage in the development of computing technology, we are not talking about some technical solutions, but about the implementation of a qualitatively new business model for the development of the high technology market, which after 10-15 years we were able to observe already on other examples - Internet, Open Source.
However, any community, even the most free one, must have leaders. IBM did not last long in this role with respect to the PC: by the end of the 80s, two other project participants, Intel and Microsoft, had taken the lead. It is curious that in 1981 Microsoft did not even have the status of a "junior" partner of IBM, and Bill Gates was not invited to the official presentation of the first PC. After all, MS-DOS was only a tiny part of the project, carried out for a ridiculous amount of $ 80,000. True, its developers retained the rights to develop and sell their OS to other computer manufacturers.
One of the legends associated with the history of the creation of the IBM PC says that when choosing a sonorous name for a new computer, the developers, imitating Apple, went over the names of all the fruits of Florida (the laboratory that carried out the project was located here). Nevertheless, it was decided to call it simply PC, which better corresponded to the strict style of IBM, a veteran and undisputed leader of the IT market. And they turned out to be right: since then, the term PC is not just a designation for any computer for individual purposes, but a proper name for a very specific family, the ancestor of which was the same IBM 5150. So from a technical point of view, the category of PCs includes, among other things, and the most powerful servers (in the mid-90s this term was often used to refer to them - "PC-servers").
Typically, IBM PC personal computers consist of the following parts (blocks):
- system unit (in vertical or horizontal design);
- monitor (display) for displaying text and graphic information;
- keyboardsthat allows you to enter various characters into the computer.
In a computer, the most important unit is the system one; all the main components of the computer are located in it. The PC system unit contains a number of basic technical devices, the main ones of which are: a microprocessor, random access memory, read-only memory, power supply and input-output ports, and storage devices.
In addition, the following devices can be connected to the PC system unit:
- a printer for printing text and graphic information;
- mouse manipulator - the device that controls the graphic cursor
- joystickused mainly in computer games;
- plotter or plotter - device for outputting drawings to paper;
- scanner - a device for reading graphic and text information;
- CD-ROM - CD-ROM reader, used to play moving pictures, text and sound;
- modem - a device for exchanging information with other computers via the telephone network;
- streamer - a device for storing data on magnetic tape;
- network adapter - a device that allows a computer to work in a local network.
The main units of a personal computer are the following devices: processor, memory (operative and external), devices for connecting terminals and data transmission. Here is a description of the various devices included in the computer or connected to it.
Microprocessor
A microprocessor is a large integrated circuit (LSI) made on one crystal, which is an element for creating computers of various types and purposes. It can be programmed to perform an arbitrary logic function, which means that by changing programs, you can force the microprocessor to be part of an arithmetic device or to control I / O. Memory, input-output devices can be connected to the microprocessor.
Computers such as IBM PC use microprocessors from Intel, as well as compatible microprocessors from other companies.
Microprocessors differ from each other by type (model) and clock frequency (speed of performing elementary operations, given in megahertz - MHz). The most common models from Intel: 8088, 80286, 80386SX, 80386DX, 80486, Pentium and Pentium-Pro, Pentium-II, Pentium-III, they are listed in order of increasing performance and price. Identical models can have different clock speeds - the higher the clock speed, the higher the performance and price.
The main Intel 8088, 80286, 80386 microprocessors, released earlier, do not contain special instructions for processing floating point numbers, therefore, to increase their performance, so-called mathematical coprocessors can be installed that increase performance when processing floating point numbers.
Memory
Random access memory or random access memory (RAM - OP), as well as read only memory (ROM - ROM) form the computer's internal memory, to which the microprocessor has direct access during its operation. Any information during processing is pre-written by a computer from external memory (from magnetic disks) to RAM. The OP contains data and programs being processed at the current moment of computer operation. Information in the OP comes (copied) from external memory and, after processing, is again written there. The information in the OP is contained only during a work session and when the PC is turned off or an emergency failure in the power grid, it is irretrievably lost. In this regard, the user must regularly during operation record information to be stored for a long time from the memory onto magnetic disks in order to avoid its loss.
The larger the RAM volume, the higher the computing power of the computer. As you know, to determine the amount of information, the unit of measurement is 1 byte, which is a combination of eight bits (zeros and ones). In these units, the amount of information stored in the RAM or on a floppy disk can be written as 360kb, 720kb or 1.2Mb. Here 1Kb \u003d 1024 bytes, and 1MB (1 megabyte is 1,024Kb, while the hard drive can accommodate 500MB, 1000MB or more.
For the IBM PC XT the volume is OH. as a rule, it is 640kb, for IBM PC AT - more than I MB, for older models of IBM PC - from 1 to 8 MB, but sometimes 16, and 32 MB and even more - memory can be increased by adding microcircuits on the main computer board.
Unlike OP, ROM constantly stores the same information, and the user cannot change it, although it can read it. Usually the ROM size is small and is 32 - 64 Kb. The ROM stores various programs that are recorded at the factory and are mainly designed to initialize the computer when it is turned on.
1 MB of RAM usually consists of two parts: the first 640 KB can be used by the application program and the operating system (OS). The rest of the memory is used for service purposes:
- for storing a part of the OS, which provides testing of the computer, initial loading of the OS, as well as performing basic low-level I / O services;
- to transfer images to the screen;
- to store various OS extensions that appear along with additional computer devices.
As a rule, speaking about the amount of memory (RAM), they mean exactly its first part, and it is sometimes insufficient to execute some programs.
This problem is addressed with extended and expanded memories.
Intel microprocessors 80286, 80386SX and 80486SX can handle larger RAMs - 16 MB, and 80386 and 80486 - 4GB, but MS DOS cannot directly handle RAMs larger than 640 KB. To access the additional OP, special programs (drivers) have been developed that allow receiving a request from an application program and transferring to the "protected mode" of the microprocessor operation. After completing the request, the drivers switch to normal microprocessor mode.
Cash
Cache is a special high-speed processor memory. It is used as a buffer to speed up the work of the processor with the OP. In addition to the processor, the PC contains:
- electronic circuits (controllers) that control the operation of various devices included in the computer (monitor, drives, etc.);
- input and output ports through which the processor exchanges data with external devices. There are specialized ports through which data is exchanged with the internal devices of the computer, and general-purpose ports to which various additional external devices (printer, mouse, etc.) can be connected.
General purpose ports are of two types: parallel, designated LPT1 through LPT9, and asynchronous serial ports, designated COM1 through COM4. Parallel ports do input and output faster than serial ports, but they also require more wires for communication (the port for the domain with the printer is parallel, and the port for communication with the modem over the telephone network is the serial).
Graphics adapters
The monitor or display is an obligatory peripheral device of the PC and serves to display the processed information from the computer's RAM.
By the number of colors used when presenting information on the screen, displays are divided into monochrome and color, and by the type of information displayed on the screen - into symbolic (only symbolic information is displayed) and graphic (both symbolic and graphic information is displayed). A computer video consists of two parts: a monitor and an adapter. We see only the monitor, the adapter is hidden in the car body. The monitor itself contains only a cathode-ray tube. The adapter contains logic circuits that output the video signal. The electron beam passes through the screen in about 1/50 of a second, but the image changes quite rarely. Therefore, the video signal arriving at the screen must again generate (regenerate) the same image. The adapter has video memory to store it.
In character mode, the display screen, as a rule, simultaneously displays 25 lines of 80 characters per line (a total of 2000 characters - the number of characters of a standard typewritten sheet), and in graphic mode, the screen resolution is determined by the characteristics of the monitor adapter board - a device for its interface with the system unit ...
The image quality on the monitor screen depends on the type of graphics adapter used.
The most widely used adapters are of the following types: EGA, VGA and SVGA. VGA and SVGA (SuperVGA) are quite widely used nowadays. SVGA has a very high resolution. Previously, a CGA adapter was used, but it is no longer used on modern computers.
Adapters vary " resolution"(for graphic modes). Resolution is measured by the number of lines and the number of elements per line (" pixel "), in other words, dots per line. For example, a monitor with a resolution of 720x348 displays vertical 348 lines-dots at 720 dots per line. publishing systems use monitors with 800x600 and 1024x768 resolution, which are very expensive.
Screens come in standard size (14 "), enlarged (15") and large like a TV (17, 20 and even 21 "- that is, 54 cm diagonally), color (from 16 to tens of millions of colors) and monochrome.
The monitor adapter standard also determines the number of colors in the palette of color monitors: CGA in graphics mode has 4 colors, EGA has 64 colors, VGA has up to 256 colors, and SVGA has over a million colors. In text mode, all of these standards allow 16 colors to be reproduced.
The choice of this or that type of monitor depends on the type of problem being solved on a PC. For example, if a user processes only text information, then a monochrome character monitor will be enough for him, but if he solves problems (computer-aided design, then he needs a color graphics monitor. However, for most applications, color graphics monitors and adapters are preferred).
Disk drives
Storage media - an integral part of any computer - are often called external storage media or external computer memory. They are designed for long-term storage of voluminous information, while their content does not depend on the current state of the PC. Any data and programs are stored on external media, therefore a user data library is formed and saved here.
Information storage devices in personal computers are magnetic disk drives (NMD), in which direct access to information is organized. Recently, for personal computers there have appeared magnetic tape drives - streamers, which can contain very large amounts of information, but at the same time organize only sequential access to it. However, tape drives do not replace magnetic disk drives, they only supplement them. There is plenty of HMD: floppy disk drives (floppy disks) and hard disk drives (HDDs).
Hard disk drives are designed for permanent storage of information. On an IBM PC with an 80286 microprocessor, usually the hard disk capacity is from 20 to 40 MB, with 80386 SX, DX and 80486SX - up to 300 MB, with 804S6DX up to 500-600 MB, with PENTIUM - more than 2 GB.
A hard disk is a non-removable magnetic disk that is protected by a hermetically sealed enclosure and placed inside the system unit. It can consist of several discs with two magnetic surfaces combined into one package.
A hard disk, unlike a floppy disk, allows you to store large amounts of information, which gives great opportunities for the user.
In the process of working with a hard disk drive, the user must know how much memory the data and programs stored on the disks occupy, how much free memory there is, control the memory filling and rationally place information in it. The most common floppy disks are 5.25 and 3.5 inches.
Floppy disk drives (floppy disks) allow you to transfer information from one computer to another, store information that is not constantly used on a computer, make archival copies of information stored on a hard disk. A floppy disk (diskette) is a thin disk made of a special material with a magnetic coating applied to its surface. On the plastic case of the floppy disk there is a rectangular slot for the write protection, a hole for the contact of the magnetic disk with the reading heads of the disk drive, and a label with the parameters of the floppy disk.
The main parameter of a floppy disk is its diameter. Currently, there are two main standards for floppy disk drives - floppy disks with a diameter of 3.5 and 5.25 inches (89 and 133 mm, respectively). Typically, the IBM PC XT and IBM PC AT mainly use 5.25-inch floppy disks, while older IBM PC models use 3.5-inch floppy disks.
To write and read information, a floppy disk is installed in the drive slot, which is located in the system unit. The PC may have one or two drives. Since a floppy disk is a removable device, it is used not only to store information, but also to transfer information from one PC to another.
Floppy disks measuring 5.25 inches, depending on the quality of workmanship, can accommodate information of 360, 720 KB or 1.2 MB.
You can determine the maximum capacity of 3.5-inch floppy disks by their appearance: 1.44 MB floppy disks have a special slot in the lower right corner, while 720 KB floppies do not. These floppy disks are housed in a hard plastic case, which greatly enhances their reliability and durability. In this regard, on new computers, 3.5 "floppy disks are replacing 5.25" floppy disks.
Write protection of floppy disks. The 5.25-inch floppy disks have a write-protect slot. If this slot is sealed, it will not be possible to write to the floppy disk. On 3.5-inch floppy disks have write protection slots, there is a special switch - a latch that allows or prohibits writing to the floppy disk. Recording permission mode - the hole is closed, if the hole is open, then recording is prohibited.
Initialization (formatting) of floppy disks. The floppy disk must be initialized (marked) in a special way before using it for the first time.
In addition to conventional drives, modern computers have special drives for laser compact discs (CD-ROM), as well as for magneto-optical discs and Bernoulli discs.
CD-ROMs are compact disks, many large software I pockets for modern computers are produced on such disks. CD-ROM drives differ in information transfer speed - regular, double, quadruple, etc. speed. Modern 24 - 36 - high-speed drives operate almost at the speed of a hard drive.
A typical CD has more than 600 MB or 600 million characters, but it is only intended for information playback and cannot be recorded. Rewritable CDs and their corresponding drives are already available, but they are very expensive. Currently, CDs are selling sets of excellent quality photographs, discs with video clips and films. Sets of games with a variety of music and sound effects, computer encyclopedias, training programs - all this is released only on CD.
Printers and plotters
The printer (printing device) is designed to output text and graphic information from the computer's RAM to paper, while paper can be either sheet or roll.
The main advantage of printers is the ability to use a large number of fonts, which allows you to create fairly complex documents. Fonts differ in the width and height of the letters, their slope, and the spacing between letters and lines.
To work on the printer, the user must select the font he needs and set the printing parameters in order to match the width of the output document and the size of the paper used. Based on this, for example, dot matrix printers have two modifications: printers with a narrow carriage (wider than a standard typewritten sheet) and printers with a wide carriage (wider than a standard typewritten sheet).
It should be remembered that the size of the "computer sheet" (the space allotted by the PC to the user to fill in symbolic information) significantly exceeds the size of the monitor screen and amounts to hundreds of columns and thousands of lines, which is determined by the amount of free RAM and the software used. When information is output to the printer, the contents of the entire computer sheet are printed, and not only part of it visible on the monitor screen. Therefore, you must first divide the text prepared for printing into pages, setting the required text width based on the type of font and paper width.
Printers can display graphic information and even in color. There are hundreds of printer models. They can be of the following types: matrix, inkjet, letter, laser.
Until recently, the most commonly used were dot matrix printers, the print head of which contains a vertical row of thin metal rods (needles). The head moves along the printed line, and the rods hit the paper through the ink ribbon at the right time. This ensures the formation of an image on paper. Cheap printers use 9-bar heads and print quality is mediocre, which can be improved with a few passes. Better quality and sufficient print speed for printers with 24 or 48 rods. Print speed - from 10 to 60 seconds per page. When choosing a printer, they are usually interested in the possibility of printing Russian and Kazakh letters. In this case, it is possible:
- fonts of Kazakh and Russian letters can be built into the printer. In this case, after switching on, the printer is immediately ready to print texts in Kazakh and Russian. If the codes of Kazakh and Russian letters are the same as in a computer, then the texts can be printed using the DOS PRINT or COPY commands. If the codes do not match, then you have to use the transcoding drivers.
- fonts of Kazakh and Russian letters are absent in the printer's ROM. Then, before printing the texts, you need to download the driver for downloading the fonts of the letters. When the printer is turned off, they disappear from memory.
Dot Matrix Printers easy to operate, have the lowest cost, but rather low productivity and print quality, especially when displaying graphic data.
Inkjet printers the image is formed by micro drops of special ink. They are more expensive than dot matrix printers and require careful maintenance. They work silently, have a lot of built-in fonts, but at the same time are very sensitive to the quality of the paper - The quality and performance of inkjet printers is higher than that of matrix printers. Some of the disadvantages are: rather high ink consumption and imperfection of printed documents to moisture.
Laser printers provide the best print quality, use the principle of xerography - the image is transferred to paper from a special drum, to which ink particles are electrically attracted. The difference from a xerographic machine is that the print drum is electrified with the help of a laser beam on commands from the machine. The resolution of these printers is from 300 to 1200 dpi. Print speed from 3 to 15 seconds per page with text output. Laser printers offer the best print quality and performance, but are the most expensive of the printer types reviewed.
Plotter (plotter) also serves to display information on paper and is mainly used to display graphical information. Plotters are widely used in design automation, when it is necessary to obtain drawings of developed products. Plotters are divided into monochrome and color, as well as - according to the quality of information output to print.
Computer input devices
Keyboard -the main device for entering information into the computer is the keyboard, with the help of which you can enter text information, set commands to the computer. We will get to know the keyboard in more detail in the next lesson.
Mouse together with the keyboard, it is intended for computer control. This is a separate small device with two or three buttons, which the user moves along the horizontal surface of the desktop, pressing the corresponding keys if necessary to perform certain operations.
Scanner allows you to enter any type of information into a computer from a sheet of paper, while the input procedure is simple, convenient and fast enough.
Additional devices
Modems(modulator-demodulator) are used to transfer data between computers and they differ mainly in the speed of information transfer. Modem speeds today vary from 2400 bps to 25000 thousand bps. They support certain standards of data exchange procedures (protocols). When connecting to some kind of computer network (InterNet, Relcom, FidoNet, etc.) or for using e-mail, the modem is the most necessary device.
There are also fax modems that combine the functions of a modem with a fax machine. Using a fax modem, you can send text information not only to your subscriber's computer, but also to a simple fax machine and, accordingly, receive it. Fax modems are somewhat more expensive than modems, but their capabilities are wider.
Nowadays people often talk about the multimedia capabilities of computers. Multimedia is a modern method of displaying information based on the use of text, graphic and sound capabilities of a computer, i.e. it is the combined use of image, sound, text, music and animation to better display data on the screen. A computer with this capability must have a sound card and CD-ROM drive that can reproduce colors, soundtracks, and videos from a regular CD. Multimedia computers can also contain a special video card for connecting a video camera, video recorder and a device for receiving television signals.
Control questions
1. List the main components of the PC and options.
2. What printers are used for the PC?
3. What video adapters do you know? What is the difference between a display and a video adapter?
4. What floppies do you use on your computer?
5. What is a modem and what is it for?
General information about MS DOS
Operating systems for personal computers during the existence of this class of computers since 1975 have undergone significant development, accompanied by an increase in the bit capacity of personal computers (PCs) from 8 to 32, expansion of capabilities, and improvement of the user interface (Table 2.1).
Table 2.1 Some types of OS for personal computers
| PC | ||
| 8-bit | 16-bit | 32-bit |
| P / M-80, MSX DOS, | MS-DOS, RAFOS, OS DBK, INMOS | UNIX, XENIX, |
8-bit operating systems retain their importance as the operating systems of the simplest educational and household (gaming) computers. Due to the limited address space of the RAM (65 KB), serious professional use of such computers is impossible.
16-bit IBM-compatible computers make up a significant part of the professional personal computer fleet in our country. The most common operating system for these computers is the single-user single-tasking MS DOS (from MicroSoft - abbreviated to MS; DOS is the English abbreviation of the name "disk operating system"). The first version of this OS was created simultaneously with the personal computer IBM PC in 1981 and from external devices supported only floppy disks with 160 KB floppy disks. Version 2.0 is associated with the appearance of the PC XT modification, it also supported hard drives up to 10 MB, a tree-like file structure. Popular over the years version 3.3 (1987) - to support PC AT. This OS modification addresses 640 KB of RAM, which at the time of its appearance was a progressive moment, and then became a factor holding back the progress of software. Modern versions of MS DOS have overcome the limitations on the size of random access memory (RAM), have many new commands, contain built-in device drivers, graphical shell, help system, etc.
The main structural components of MS DOS are as follows:
Basic Input / Output System (BIOS);
Boot Loader (SB);
Device drivers (i.e. programs that support their operation);
Basic module;
Command processor (also called command interpreter);
DOS utilities (helper programs).
Let's briefly describe the main components. The BIOS is stored in ROM. This program is written directly in machine codes; when the computer is turned on, it is automatically read into RAM, launched for execution and makes a cursory check of the operability of the main computer devices. The BIOS then searches the disks for the operating system startup program (bootstrap program). The BIOS also has functions to support standard peripherals such as the display and keyboard.
The bootstrap program found on the disk by the BIOS accesses drives A, B, and so on in sequence. until it finds the SB program, the boot loader. This program checks for the presence of the operating system kernel on the disk, which consists of files named ibmio.sys - a BIOS extension file and command.com - a command processor, loads them into RAM and launches the first of these programs for execution. It additionally tests hardware, performs DOS configuration (standard in the absence of a config.sys file - configuration file or non-standard in accordance with the contents of the config.sys file), connects the necessary drivers, etc. Next, this program sets some instructions on how to handle interrupts (interrupt vectors) and transfers control to the base DOS module, which continues to set the rules for processing interrupts and then loads the command processor into RAM and transfers control to it.
A user working with DOS without shell programs or additional interface systems communicates directly with the command processor. The operating mode is interactive, i.e. the user issues a command, the OS executes and waits for the next command. The way to issue commands is quite archaic - you just need to type the text of the command on the keyboard, for which you need to remember most of the commands, and for those rarely encountered - use the reference book (either in the form of a book or built into DOS).
The shell, when started, first looks for and executes the auto-run program (autoexec.bat file), if any. This program is created by the user from DOS commands in order to perform some routine actions to create a comfortable environment for getting started. For example, if you get the Norton Commander panel on the screen when you start your computer, it’s only because this program “autorun” is provided for by those who created the autoexec.bat file. The next action of the command processor is to issue an invitation to the user to enter a command on the screen, which looks, for example, like this: C\u003e (if DOS was loaded from the C drive).
During the operation of application programs, only a small part of DOS (called resident) is constantly in RAM. All other DOS modules are loaded only as needed and removed from RAM after processing.
The MS DOS file system supports drives denoted by a Latin letter and a colon, for example:
a hierarchical directory system borrowed from the UNIX system, files with names of up to eight characters and an extension of up to three.
Common MS DOS Commands
Common commands are recognized and executed by the command.com shell. Commands are entered from the keyboard; their entry is completed by pressing the () key.
Common DOS commands are divided into groups:
Disk commands;
File commands;
Directory commands;
System control commands.
A typical command structure looks like this:
Parameters (arguments) indicate those objects on which operations are performed, keys specify the action of the command. Sign of the key (switch) - the presence of a slanting line "/". Square brackets indicate the possibility of missing a fragment.
Directory team; displays a list of directories and files within the current directory. If you use the DIR command without parameters and switches, it displays the names of files (directory), their extensions, sizes (in bytes), date and time of creation, their number, total size and size of free disk space.
The complete syntax is:
DIR [drive:] [path] [filename] | / P] // W] attributes]] sort_order]] [...]
Options
[drive:] [path] specifies the drive and directory whose table of contents you want to view;
[filename] specifies the file or group of files to be listed.
Placeholders can be used in the file name:
Replaces one arbitrary character in the file name;
* replaces an arbitrary number of arbitrary characters.
For example:
DIR * .txt viewing a list of all files with the txt extension;
DIR a?. * View a list of files with names of two characters, the first of which is the letter a, and arbitrary extensions.
/ P displays information until the screen is full, to get the next screens you need to press any key;
/ W displays information in abbreviated form, only the names of files and directories (in 5 columns);
/ A [[:] attributes] displays information on those directories and files, the attributes of which are specified.
Here are some of the attributes:
N. hidden files;
All files except hidden ones;
S system files;
S all files except system files;
D directories;
D files only;
R files are read-only.
Parameter
/ O [[:] sort_order]
controls the sort order of files in the list displayed on the screen. Without this parameter, file and directory names are listed alphabetically. By setting it appropriately, you can organize the output of files and directories in reverse alphabetical order, in alphabetical or reverse order by extension names, in ascending or descending order of the date and time of the last modification of the file or directory contents, in ascending or descending order of their sizes.
A few more commands from the same group (names only):
MKDIR (MO) create a new directory;
CHDIR (CD) change to another directory.
File handling command; deletes files.
Syntax:
DEL [drive:] [path]
Parameter
[drive:] [path]
specifies the location and name of the file or group of files to be deleted if wildcards are used in the name.
The / P switch causes a confirmation request for each file to be deleted.
File handling command; copies one or more files to a specified location, and can also be used to merge files. Syntax:
COPY [+ source file [+ ...]] [result file]
The parameters consist of a drive designation, directory and file name.
specifies the location and name of the file whose content you want to copy.
specifies the location and name of the file where the copied information should be placed.
/ Y indicates that the command should not ask for confirmation when replacing existing files;
/ V verifies that new files are written correctly.
Another team from the same group:
RENAME (REN) - rename a file or group of files;
Examples of system control commands are (only names are given):
COMMAND - start the command processor;
EXIT - exit from the command processor.
Additional utility commands
In addition to the commands recognized and executed by the command processor, the operating system contains a large number of utilities — commands implemented as separate programs. As an example, consider the utility for formatting magnetic disks.
FORMAT - Formats a disk for use in MS DOS.
The FORMAT utility creates empty directories and FAT tables on the disk, and checks for bad areas on the disk. Can destroy all data on disk.
Syntax:
FORMAT disk:]
FORMAT disk:]
FORMAT disk:]
FORMAT disk:
Parameter
disk: indicates the disk to be formatted (this is the only required parameter of the utility).
/ V: label indicates the disk label, rarely used;
/ Q indicates that "quick" formatting is in progress; check of damaged areas is not necessary;
/ U indicates that you do not need to "restore" information before formatting;
/ F: size indicates the capacity of the floppy;
/ S copies the operating system files IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM to a floppy disk, which makes it bootable;
/ T: tracks indicates the number of tracks on the floppy disk;
/ N: Sectors Specifies the number of sectors on the floppy disk.
The command for working with disks (floppy); copies the contents of a floppy disk in one drive to a disk in another. Its syntax is as follows
DISKCOPY
Here the first two objects in square brackets are parameters, the third is a key.
DISKCOPY A: B: copy the diskette in drive A to the diskette in drive B;
DISKCOPY A: copy the floppy disk in drive A to the diskette in the current drive;
DISKCOPY A: B: / I copy only the first side of the floppy disk.
A few more commands of the same group (only names; parameters and keys can be found in the references):
DISKCOMP - comparison of the contents of two floppy disks (in order to determine whether it is the same);
CHKDSK - checking the integrity of the file structure on the disk, correcting its errors;
RECOVER - restore (as far as possible) information on a defective disk.
A large number of MS DOS utilities are described in the manual for this system. Drivers are also important, especially for extended RAM, which are included with the OS and allow more than 640 KB of memory.
A special role in the system is played by the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, which are read at system startup and set its configuration, drivers and TSRs loaded into memory, and additional commands executed at system boot.
It is executed before the shell is loaded and contains calls to the SYS drivers. Downloadable drivers are installed by the DEVICE command followed by the fully qualified filename of the driver file. For example, to connect the mouse driver MOUSE.SYS, you can use the command:
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ MOUSE.SYS.
Starting with MS DOS 4.0, it is possible to load COM and EXE drivers using the INSTALL command. For example,
INSTALL \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ MOUSE.COM.
To work effectively with various types of computer microprocessors (80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium) and the size of the RAM, special drivers are used:
DEVISE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ HIMEM.SYS
DEVISE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DEVISE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ EMM486.EXE.
In addition to loading external drivers, CONFIG.SYS loads its own (internal) commands.
If the computer does not have a hard disk cache (i.e., the buffer area of \u200b\u200bRAM, where the contents of disk blocks are stored), then the BUFFERS command is generated to speed up work with the disk. A buffer is a 532 byte piece of RAM.
Using the FILES command, you can specify the number of files that can be simultaneously used by the system and programs.
The DOS command makes it possible to load operating system modules and some drivers into a memory area above 640 KB, thereby increasing the size of free base memory, which is important for a number of application programs.
Below are examples of typical configuration files:
1.for PC 286
REM Typical CONFIG.SYS
REM some drivers in HMA
REM (first 64 kbytes of memory area above 1 MB)
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ WINDOWS \\ MOUSE.SYS
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ STACKER \\ STACHIGH.SYS
REM using data compression
2.for PC 386
REM Typical CONFIG.SYS
REM If possible, load operating system modules and
REM some drivers in NMA
REM (first 64 KB of memory area above 1 MB)
REM and UMB (blocks in memory area between 640 KB and 1 MB)
REM Up to 20 files can be opened simultaneously
REM Use 5 buffers to work with files on the hard disk
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE \u003d C: \\ DOS \\ EMM386.EXE NOEMS
REM with UMB support enabled
DEVICEHIGH \u003d C: \\ WINDOWS \\ MOUSE.SYS
