Expert: Original IBM PC way ahead of its time

PC World Executive Editor Harry McCracken

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Twenty years ago on Sunday, IBM unveiled its signature PC. The state-of-the-art, easy-to-use computer ended up revolutionizing society, by some measures ushering in the start of the technology revolution.

Harry McCracken, executive editor of PC World magazine, talked with CNN's Stephen Frazier on Saturday about the invention's creation and impact on society.

FRAZIER: We understand that you were using a personal computer as far back as 1978, so obviously you're aware of what James Hattori just reported. IBM was not the first. So what made it the biggest, then?

McCRACKEN: There were several things. First of all, most of the personal computers that preceded it were from very small companies. They appealed mainly to hobbyists and people who liked to write their own programs. And I think IBM saw that they were going to be a big thing, not just for people who were already interested in technology, but first of all, for businesses of all types, and eventually for the home.

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IBM did a very good job of building something that was, first of all, very durable, well-built, versatile. And just the fact that it was IBM made a big difference, because people didn't know who the small companies were, but IBM is as synonymous with computers as any company has ever been.

FRAZIER: There's a terrific article in the August issue of your magazine, PC World, that talks about the fact that, in spite of all those strengths you just described, the PC actually was a product that IBM rushed to market with a deadline in mind and market share rather than the elegance of its internal architecture. Nobody knew it was going to set a standard that would last this long.

McCRACKEN: They really didn't know that. But, you know, the amazing thing is that if you have any software line around from 1981, you can plug it into one of today's systems, and it will still run.

FRAZIER: So really, if you're talking about one of today's systems, as powerful as they are and as elegant as they are, they have at their heart that original PC?

McCRACKEN: It's a direct descendant. You know, the 1981 PC had an Intel chip at its heart, and it was running a Microsoft operating system. That's true today too.

FRAZIER: We have a picture here, a figure that shows the kinds of comparisons you could make between the power of that original versus a brand-new IBM personal computer, and the cost.

And here's the -- the difference is outstanding here. I mean, in today's dollars, that original one cost about $6,000, is that right, $6,000?

McCRACKEN: That's right. You could buy a basic machine for a lot less than that, but one of the big things that's changed is, today when you buy a PC, it works out of the box. Back then, if you bought the basic model, you couldn't hook it up to a monitor, you couldn't hook it up to a printer. The operating system was extra. So by the time you had something that actually did anything, you were paying $3,000 in 1981 dollars.

FRAZIER: And what you're describing is a flexibility and user-friendliness that's almost priceless to people like me, not a hobbyist.

McCRACKEN: That's really true. You know, IBM understood that it was important that the box be something that … you didn't have to be a technician to use. Very quickly there started to be lots of off-the-shelf software packages for accounting, word processing, and so forth, and add-ons to make it do more useful things.

FRAZIER: Certainly at the 10-year anniversary, I could not use those computers. They drove me nuts. And you had to do things that were counterintuitive, like saving before you turned it off or you lost all the work you did, as recently as, say, '93 or '94.

So the changes really got better after that.

McCRACKEN: Really, yes. I mean, ease of use has always been a long, hard battle, and we're certainly still not as close to the vision of a system that's really easy to use for everybody as we could be. But a lot of that progress has happened in the last 10 years or so. And a lot of that I think we can credit to the Macintosh, which is kind of the one alternative platform left which continues to influence the IBM PC platform to this day.

FRAZIER: Last question. You heard Paul Saffo there being kind of negative. Would you say that the next 20 years could be as revolutionary as the past 20?

McCRACKEN: He's absolutely right, that we're just scratching the surface. Today, technology giveth but also taketh away in (that) you still need to learn a lot about troubleshooting. And with the Internet as amazing as it is, there are privacy issues and security issues we need to think about.

So we're really just, I think, kind of at the start of the revolution.