How were PCs mass marketed?
If we refer to the history of IBM (International Business Machines) Corporation, one of the pioneers of the now commonly used personal computers; we will be able to determine what events and strategies IBM utilized to be able to mass produce/market PCs. How did a company that started as a tabulating company for the United States Census help make personal computers a household appliance?
The punch card was the first means for programmers to created code and feed it to a machine and for that machine to execute the operations specified in the code. IBM introduced an 80-column punch card in 1928 and used this for their operations in the years to follow. This may have well been the starting point for the modern computers.
People today are always demanding better and more functional appliances. We can see this demand in many things that we use today. For example, inventors came up with the analog walkman. Then, they improved the functionality, look and efficiency by producing the digital compact disc player. At the time CD players seemed to be able to do the job but then came along the now widely used and recognized mp3 players. Given this it is easy to think that the early developers of computers or computing machines in the 1900’s would have also strived to increase the efficiency of the punch card technology.
The start of the Second World War was a big “break” for the development of computers and IBM took advantage of this. IBM was a large contributor the
The involvement of IBM in the Second World War was again beneficial as they became the U.S. Air Force’s chief contractor for their defense systems. This gave IBM to develop more advanced specialized systems and further their research on computers.
Improvements in technology throughout the following years such as the advent of vacuum tubes all the way to integrated circuit chips aided IBM to fulfill the goal of building the personal computer. There were also new forms of memory storage that could be used. This meant that IBM had everything that they needed to build a computer that can be used by average people in their everyday lives. And IBM did just that.
Now that we know what factors lead up to IBM producing personal computers conclusions can be made on how PCs came to be mass produced. For PCs to become a household appliance today, it only did not need a group of people/company to develop the technology and then sell it. Economics states that there must be a demand for a certain product so that someone will eventually supply that demand. In the early beginnings of IBM the Second World War served to be the demand.
Another factor that is needed for a product such as personal computers to become everyday things is that there should be a large public interest in what personal computers did and how it can help peoples’ lives and thus support the manufacture of the product. History suggests that since the Roman times people have always had the need of computing something. Thus the existence of the abacus and other tools that help people compute. Therefore, IBM or any other computer company did not have to do much to generate public interest in what they were doing. They just needed to focus on developing and perfecting computers.
Given all this, I think that the need for powerful and portable computing machines is the true driving force and reason why PCs now are mass marketed, produced or manufactured worldwide. Without the need for an automated tabulating service for the U.S. Census, IBM would not have been established and would not have revolutionized computers. Computer companies capitalized on this need and from it developed products to support their financial requirements. All they had to do next is wait for the technology that they needed, such as capacitors and magnetic tape, to be invented so that they can improve and optimize their computers.
Computer companies like IBM then had a need for smaller and more efficient parts to build their computers. And like what they did with the need of people for computing machines, other companies developed products to satisfy this need. This eventually made building computers much cheaper. Programs were then designed and developed to be easily used by everyday people. Then all of a sudden computers slowly appeared in households worldwide. This certainly proves the saying; “necessity is the mother of invention”, as without necessity no one would have paid attention to developing computer to what they are today.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware
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