X-Nico

unusual facts about IBM PC



Beat Ball

Beat Ball is a freeware breakout clone game PC that was created by Stefan Persson, also known under the alias Imphenzia Games, using the Game Maker software.

Clock rate

The original IBM PC (c. 1981) had a clock rate of 4.77 MHz (4,772,727 cycles/second).

Composite monitor

From the late 1970s stand-alone composite monitors came into use, including by the Apple II, Commodore VIC 20/64/128, Atari, the IBM PC with CGA card, some computers compatible with it, and other home and business computers of the 1980s.

Game engine recreation

Emulation of classical systems or operating systems is an alternative to an engine recreation; for instance DOSbox is a notable emulator of the PC/MS-DOS environment.

GlobalView

GlobalView was an integrated “desktop environment” including word-processing, desktop-publishing, and simple calculation (spreadsheet) and database functionality, developed at Xerox Parc as a way to run the software originally developed for their Xerox Alto, Xerox Star and Xerox Daybreak 6085 specialized workstations on SUN Microsystems workstations and IBM PC-based platforms.

IBM System/36 BASIC

System/36 BASIC was first offered in 1983, and as such, contained many of the trappings that a BASIC program would have encountered in the time period of the IBM PC, the Commodore 64, the VIC-20, the TRS-80, or many other offerings of the Seventies and early Eighties.

Intel 8237

It was used as the DMA controller in the original IBM PC and IBM XT.

Loopz

Audiogenic also published versions of the original game for the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and IBM PC in 1990 and 1991.

Lotus Improv

By the end of the summer of 1986, Salas had created a slideshow-like demonstration of a system known as Modeler on the IBM PC.

His version, Lotus 1-2-3, would go on to be an even greater success than VisiCalc, in no small part due to the fact that it ran on, and was tuned for, the new IBM PC.

Okimate 10

The Okimate 10 by Oki Electric Industry was a low-cost 1980s color printer with interface "plug 'n print" modules for Commodore, Atari, IBM PC, and Apple Inc. home computers.

Plantronics Colorplus

The Plantronics Colorplus was a graphics card for IBM PC computers, first sold in 1982.

Roland SC-7

It can also be configured as a MIDI interface for either IBM PC/AT or Apple Macintosh computers with a special serial cable and Roland software.

Screensaver

The first screensaver was allegedly written for the original IBM PC by John Socha, best known for creating the Norton Commander; he also coined the term screen saver.

Strategic Studies Group

Its success was followed by a string of other, mostly historical military games published throughout the 1980s for Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64, and IBM PC series of computers.


see also

Atarisoft

For example, video games sold for the Commodore 64 came up in green packages, games for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A in yellow, games for the IBM PC in blue, and so on.

ESoft

eSoft was founded by Philip L. Becker in 1984 and started out making and selling the TBBS (bulletin board system) initially targeted at RadioShack TRS-80 CP/M machines, but later ported to IBM-PC computers.

IBM System x

Starting out as IBM PC Server, rebranded Netfinity, then eServer xSeries and now System x, these servers are distinguished by being based on off-the-shelf x86 CPUs; IBM positions them as their "low end" or "entry" offering.

Microsoft Press

Microsoft Press' first introduced books were The Apple Macintosh Book by Cary Lu and Exploring the IBM PC by Peter Norton in 1984 at the West Coast Computer Faire.

Mouse Systems

In 1982 MSC acquired rights to PCPaint from Microtex Industries, the first mouse-driven image manipulation program for the IBM PC, written in Assembly language by Doug Wolfgram.

PC Paintbrush

It was originally developed as a response to the first paintbrush program for the IBM PC, PCPaint, which had been released the prior year by Mouse Systems, the company responsible for bringing the mouse to the IBM PC for the first time.

Rainbow Series

Phreak called them "those Crayola books" and Cereal replied, "Oh yeah, Technicolor rainbow." However the other books, such as the Peter Norton "pink shirt book" (The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC), are not part of the Rainbow Series.

SuperDrive

This was made possible as the SuperDrive now utilitized the same MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) encoding scheme used by the IBM PC, yet still retained backward compatibility with Apple's variable-speed zoned CAV scheme and Group Code Recording encoding format, so it could continue to read Macintosh MFS, HFS and Apple II ProDOS formats on 400/800 KB disks.

The Wollongong Group

Notable Wollongong technical staff that worked on these projects include David H. Crocker (Email), Dr. Marshall Rose (SNMP), Karl Auerbach (Netbios, SNMP), Narayan Mohanram (TCP/IP on UNIX), Jerry Scott (TCP/IP on VMS), Leo McLaughlin III and John Bartas (TCP/IP on IBM PC).

Wordtris

Wordtris, stylized as WORDTЯIS, is a Tetris offshoot designed by Alexey Pajitnov and published by Spectrum Holobyte in 1991 for the IBM PC platform.