Ibm's Early Computers

Cambridge, MA / London, England: MIT Press. Near Fine in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1986. 1st Edition; 1st Printing. Hardcover. 0262022257 . B&W Illustrations; This book is in Near Fine condition and has a Very Good+ to Near Fine- condition. The book and its contents are in clean, bright condition. The text pages are clean and bright. The dust jacket is mostly clean and bright, but has some light rubbing and wear. "International Business Machines (IBM) , one of the world's largest companies, had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market in 1982. In the late 1970s the new personal computer industry was dominated by the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Tandy Corporation's TRS-80, and various CP/M machines. With $150 million in sales by 1979 and projected annual growth of more than 40% in the early 1980s, the microcomputer market was large enough for IBM's attention. Other large technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) , Texas Instruments (TI) , and Data General had entered it, and some large IBM customers were buying Apples, so the company saw introducing its own personal computer as both an experiment in a new market and a defense against rivals, large and small. In 1980 and 1981 rumors spread of an IBM personal computer, perhaps a miniaturized version of the IBM System/370, while Matsushita acknowledged that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer for the American company. The Japanese project, codenamed "Go", ended before the 1981 release of the American-designed IBM PC codenamed "Chess", but two simultaneous projects further confused rumors about the forthcoming product. " (from Wikipedia) .