Macintosh Vs. IBM

Macintosh vs. IBM

The IBM and Macintosh computers have been in competition with each other for years, and each of them have their strong points. They both had their own ideas about where they should go in the personal computer market. They also had many developments, which propelled themselves over the other.

It all started when Thomas John Watson became president of Computing Tabulating

Recording in 1914, and in 1924 he renamed it to International Business Machines

Corporation. He eventually widened the company lines to include electronic computers, which was extremely new in those days. In 1975 IBM introduced their first personal computer (PC) which was called the Model 5100. It carried a price tag of about $9,000 which caused it to be out of the main stream of personal computers, even though their first computer did not get off to as big as a start they had hoped it did not stop them from continuing on. Later on IBM teamed up with Microsoft to create an operating system to run their new computers, because their software division was not able to meet a deadline.

They also teamed up with Intel to supply its chips for the first IBM personal computer. When the personal computer hit the market it was a major hit and IBM became a strong power in electronic computers. Phoenix Technologies went through published documentation to figure out the internal operating system

(BIOS) in the IBM. In turn, they designed a BIOS of their own which could be used with IBM computers. It stood up in courts and now with a non IBM BIOS, the clone was created. Many manufacturers jumped in and started making their own

IBM Compatible computers, and IBM eventually lost a big share in the desktop computers. While IBM was just getting started in the personal computer market, Apple was also just getting on its feet. It was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. They were both college drop outs, Steve Jobs out of Reed College in

Oregon and Steve Wozniak from the University of Colorado. They ended up in

Silicon Valley, which is located in northern California near San Francisco.

Wozniak was the person with the brains and Jobs was the one who put it all together. For about $700 someone could buy a computer that they put together, which was called the Apple I. They hired a multimillionaire, Armas Clifford

Markkula, a 33 year old as the chief executive in 1977. In the mean time

Wozniak was working at Hewlett Packard until Markkula encouraged him to quit his job with them, and to focus his attention on Apple.