4 ms·

> It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s

> It is worth noting how small the market was at the time though, "In 1983 they sold more than 750,000 machines" - Apple has just passed 100,000,000 iPhone 12s in six months since launch. which is the goddamn point. it was a name in tech circles, and this community forgets how small tech circles were back then heck, someone even cited the cell processor in playstation. outside the nerdiest of gamers, very few actually cared, and the name that stuck and resonated from that item was playstation, not ibm anyway. want some name that public would recognize in the 80s? try nintendo and sega. >>>> I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??" kid back then would have had the same reaction as the gp kids at hearing ibm. this community is completely out of touch and filled with vitriol.

ghaff 5y ago
In 1970, IBM was #5 on the Fortune 500. Now, a young kid might not have heard of them because they never saw the logo on anything or used any of their products. But I'm pretty sure any reasonably well-educated adult [ADDED: or college student/probably teen] would have heard of them just like they would have heard of most of the largest US companies.
- avereveard 5y ago
  which means nothing, jesus, are people not able to follow a thread anymore? the whole thing was an answer to this: >>>> I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??" answer wouldn't have changed in the sixties, seventies, nor eighties. mayyybe in the nineties, for the short period laptop became sought after and thinkpad the peak of the form factor.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Now you're just being rude and I and others are telling you that you're almost certainly wrong. I'm not particularly surprised that a teen today wouldn't have heard of IBM. (It's a large, but one of many, enterprise computing suppliers. I assume they haven't heard of VMware or Oracle either.) I actually would be surprised if a typical child of the Space Age in 1970 wouldn't have heard of it given that IBM pretty much was COMPUTER in the public mind. I'm pretty sure I would have known most of the largest US companies as a teen, including IBM, because of their cultural ubiquity, not because I had a PC (which didn't exist).
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    > which means nothing ?? In 1997, IBM Deep Blue beat chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov and made international news. IBM sponsored the Olympic Games for 40 years, they sponsored the 1995 Wimbledon tennis tournament, the ATP Tour, the US Open, French Open, Australian Open tennis tournaments, the Masters golf tournament, baseball games, auto racing, college football. Dave Bowman wore an IBM logo on his spacesuit in 2001 A Space Odyssey while people argued that "HAL 9000" was based on "IBM" with the letters shifted. "At the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, IBM demonstrates the largest integrated information technology system ever seen by a mass audience." "The National Hockey League, in partnership with IBM, form an alliance - NHL Interactive Cyber Enterprises - that will use new and emerging technology to promote the growth of hockey worldwide. The Professional Golf Association of America teams with IBM to present a state-of-the-art cybercast of the 78th PGA Championship which takes place in August in Louisville, Kentucky" "IBM is the largest corporate contributor in 1996. Over the last decade, IBM has contributed more than $1.3 billion to nonprofit organizations, schools and universities - close to four million hours of volunteer time in the United States alone," "[1997] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognizes IBM for outstanding contributions in protecting the Earth's ozone layer." "[1998] U.S. Vice President Al Gore announces Blue Pacific - the world's fastest computer - which is jointly developed by the U.S. Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM" "[1998] The Guiness Book of Records officially recognizes IBM for setting two world records in Internet traffic on the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games Web site: "The Most Popular Internet Event Ever Recorded"" I can imagine that there were people who had never heard of them, but they were an enormous company with fingers in hundreds of pies, in the news often, in all sorts of ways - business, finances, sports, environmental, education, charity, employment, investment in factories - in newspapers, magazines, talking head pieces, they were as household name as any massive company, nothing like the "do you know the manufacturer of the Playstation graphics chip???" that you're presenting them as. [1] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1999.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1999.html
    - avereveard 5y ago
      what I see is a lot of people thinking their bubble is relevant for the public at large, even discounting the rampant americentrism
BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I am OP and, you are tight, I indeed feel that your answer is full of vitriol. How, from a funny/nostalgic comment can you derive something like that? In my world (France, mid-late 80's) IBM was known by everyone because computer = IBM. And computer = important, apparently. Also the legend of 2001 Space Odyssey's "HAL = IBM shifted by one" was very much live.

ghaff 5y ago

In 1970, IBM was #5 on the Fortune 500. Now, a young kid might not have heard of them because they never saw the logo on anything or used any of their products. But I'm pretty sure any reasonably well-educated adult [ADDED: or college student/probably teen] would have heard of them just like they would have heard of most of the largest US companies.

avereveard 5y ago
which means nothing, jesus, are people not able to follow a thread anymore? the whole thing was an answer to this: >>>> I told my teen children "... a company like IBM". To what they said "what is IBM??" answer wouldn't have changed in the sixties, seventies, nor eighties. mayyybe in the nineties, for the short period laptop became sought after and thinkpad the peak of the form factor.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Now you're just being rude and I and others are telling you that you're almost certainly wrong. I'm not particularly surprised that a teen today wouldn't have heard of IBM. (It's a large, but one of many, enterprise computing suppliers. I assume they haven't heard of VMware or Oracle either.) I actually would be surprised if a typical child of the Space Age in 1970 wouldn't have heard of it given that IBM pretty much was COMPUTER in the public mind. I'm pretty sure I would have known most of the largest US companies as a teen, including IBM, because of their cultural ubiquity, not because I had a PC (which didn't exist).
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  > which means nothing ?? In 1997, IBM Deep Blue beat chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov and made international news. IBM sponsored the Olympic Games for 40 years, they sponsored the 1995 Wimbledon tennis tournament, the ATP Tour, the US Open, French Open, Australian Open tennis tournaments, the Masters golf tournament, baseball games, auto racing, college football. Dave Bowman wore an IBM logo on his spacesuit in 2001 A Space Odyssey while people argued that "HAL 9000" was based on "IBM" with the letters shifted. "At the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, IBM demonstrates the largest integrated information technology system ever seen by a mass audience." "The National Hockey League, in partnership with IBM, form an alliance - NHL Interactive Cyber Enterprises - that will use new and emerging technology to promote the growth of hockey worldwide. The Professional Golf Association of America teams with IBM to present a state-of-the-art cybercast of the 78th PGA Championship which takes place in August in Louisville, Kentucky" "IBM is the largest corporate contributor in 1996. Over the last decade, IBM has contributed more than $1.3 billion to nonprofit organizations, schools and universities - close to four million hours of volunteer time in the United States alone," "[1997] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognizes IBM for outstanding contributions in protecting the Earth's ozone layer." "[1998] U.S. Vice President Al Gore announces Blue Pacific - the world's fastest computer - which is jointly developed by the U.S. Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM" "[1998] The Guiness Book of Records officially recognizes IBM for setting two world records in Internet traffic on the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games Web site: "The Most Popular Internet Event Ever Recorded"" I can imagine that there were people who had never heard of them, but they were an enormous company with fingers in hundreds of pies, in the news often, in all sorts of ways - business, finances, sports, environmental, education, charity, employment, investment in factories - in newspapers, magazines, talking head pieces, they were as household name as any massive company, nothing like the "do you know the manufacturer of the Playstation graphics chip???" that you're presenting them as. [1] https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1999.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1999.html
  - avereveard 5y ago
    what I see is a lot of people thinking their bubble is relevant for the public at large, even discounting the rampant americentrism

BrandoElFollito 5y ago

I am OP and, you are tight, I indeed feel that your answer is full of vitriol. How, from a funny/nostalgic comment can you derive something like that? In my world (France, mid-late 80's) IBM was known by everyone because computer = IBM. And computer = important, apparently. Also the legend of 2001 Space Odyssey's "HAL = IBM shifted by one" was very much live.