"capacity? ... about the same as big computers some years ago." "weight? ... around 50lbs." "price? ... reasonable." ffs imagine getting these answers today when trying to buy a computer lol.
They had two models, and they cost, adjusting for inflation, 50 thousand dollars or 120 thousand dollars respectively. The most expensive imac pro costs 53k, so...
I understand that too many people who watch this and think its funny because its old... When I watch it I get a sense of pride, it was one of the first stepping stones for our advancement today. Awesome :)
In 1978, this was the first computer I ever professionally programmed. I was a work-study student at Ohio State University, and I computerized the inventory of the fixed asset department. Learned how to spell vacuum, too. There is a switch for APL (IBM's universal language {A Programming Language that failed}) and a version of BASIC. The tape cartridge could store large arrays of data. Totally cool, back then. I programmed in BASIC.
lol You could buy 2 new cars back in 1975 for the price of the entry level model with 16k RAM or you could wait 2 years and buy a Commodore PET for a fraction of the price.
50 pounds was relatively light for the time, in an era when mainframes with the weight of a small automobile still held a large market share of computer sales in general. Most small personal computers in the early - mid 1970s weighed close to 100 pounds with massive CRT screens - very difficult for one person to move around.
A Wang 2200 or Datapoint computer would have been a cheaper option than this beast. I doubt many business people were programming this thing in APL. BASIC is good enough for most tasks.
Bitmap You guys dont get it, its a Steins Gate reference. In it the IBM 5100 was used because it functioned with an IBM proprietary programming language and they needed it to stop SERN, cool show tbh
If we took one of the people in this commercial, put them in a time machine to 2016, and showed them the computers if today, just imagine their faces 😂
My dad had an IBM 5110 in his office ~1979/1980, which I believe came after the 5100 later 70's. The thing was easily zapped by walking across the carpet and touching the keyboard. Needed to replace this component, that component, the CRT, etc...It had some crude games and best part was learning to program in BASIC. I'll never forget the large floor standing 8" disk drives.
Actually, it's because ad time is extremely expensive nowadays. On a decently popular channel, companies pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars _per second_ each time they air the advert.
I would think adjusted for inflation advertising on TV should be cheaper than ever. In 1977 there were less than ten channels, there are hundreds of channels now. The cost is based on the ratings of the show, the more people that watch a show, the more valuable the advertising time.
I worked with the 5120 that was like a sister of this system. It used BASIC as a programming language (it came with the operative system), and was even bigger than this one. But I understand they were very similar. It didn't use tape, it used 8 inches diskettes.
All IBM computers- including this one- from the 360 up until the release of the 5150, used the same basic instruction set. It is actually possible to run single-job 370 software on a 5100 with little or no modification. And because all of the logic is in microcode, it is possible to implement custom instructions just by swapping an EPROM.
It'd be neat if kids brought these to school with them--each kid carrying his/her own 50 lb. computer from home to school and back every day. The children would have grown up smart, and strong!
They felt that they were loosing the micro-computer market to Commodores and Apples and stuff so they noticeable IBM lost only due was bumped off the market due to two factors: 1. The only original aspect of IBM-PC was its BIOS, which was easy to reverse engineer. 2. Microsoft found a legal loophole to service cheaper bootleg PCs.
First computer I used was about that vintage, a Wang 2200T someone had donated to my school. From 1975. It cost about $10K new, with the printer and a special cassette drive. Had 16K memory, wouldn't be surprised if it was core rather than IC memory. Ran BASIC, with the old MATrix commands that very few BASICs implement. From the beginning I was writing DBMS programs on it, a mailing list for the Scout troop, etc.
This kind of reminds me of modern day software commercials, with the whole "business owner walks around his business and talks about how the technology helps him", except modern commercials of that kind tragically lack the DRAMATIC TRUMPET in the background.
@phoenixmicrocomputer I work for a company that in 1983 filmed a 20-minute video of our operations. It's hokey now in a nostalgia kind of way as it shows not only systems that we had back then but the people who used to run them. The tape was to be destroyed but I had the foresight to borrow it and obtain permission to make DVD copies of it. I'll have to dig that DVD out and rewatch it. "He's retired... she's dead... wonder whatever happened to her... whoa, he had hair???"
From the IBM 5100 to the Lenovo Ideapad Y580, from the graphics of a pocket calculator to those of Battlefield 3, such advanced in 35 years, just a third of a century, I really want to see what other technological marvels will be created in the coming 35 years!
Relative to it's time, this IBM computer was considered "compact" It's 2019 now, and computers have dramatically changed. Relative to our time the Nintendo switch is rather bulky.
@Jeff98177 I have only been working on computers for 2 years or so, but I learned how to on a 286 IBM PC/AT clone, and now I build modern computers from the ground up. But I still think the most gratifing work I do is on the 8088/8086/80286 computers. I just bought a IBM 5150 that did'nt work at all, bad RAM chip (In the first 16KB of integrated RAM). I enjoy ever so much about learning about and collecting these wonderful machines from the 1980's.
We can still reach the Steins gate if we get this computer but we're running out of time! Who can ship it to Finland please!? The organization is on to me. Time leap machine gives me only 48 hours but I'm afraid that's not enough..
Practically? God no, just getting one of these things would be a headache, and there are kids toys with more computing power than the 5100. But technically, if you got your hands on one, you’d probably be able to use it yeah
So I supose each one of these users had to buy a specific program on those tapes (airspace, farming, real estate...). I don't suppose each one of these people would have to write their own program in Basic or whatever language it was using, right?
I love the way they say that the price is reasonable; without stating what the price actually is...then you know it's so expensive that you will most likely choke on whatever beverage you might be drinking.
Whoa. I want to buy one... but no website to go and buy it? :( I am so sad someone left off the URL at the end of the video. Please, help, where can I get this 50 pound accounting computer?!?
this is why im glad i didnt grow up in the 1970s. 50 lbs was a light weight for a computer, they used cassette tapes that could only store less than a few kilobytes of data, computers only had a command prompt screen that took forever to figure out how to use, and these computers costed as much as a car.
