PSPINC CEO Kenichi Uchikura's Blog

On this day in 1981, IBM introduced the Model 5150 personal computer, equipped with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and running Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system. Priced at $1,565 (equivalent to over $5,000 today), it brought affordable computing power—by early 1980s standards—to homes and small businesses. The base configuration included 16 KB of RAM (expandable to 256 KB on the motherboard), a monochrome or color display, a cassette port for data storage, and the option to add one or two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. Graphics capabilities were provided by either the Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) or the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA). Buyers could choose from various operating systems, though MS-DOS quickly became the standard. This release marked a major milestone in the rise of the PC era, transforming how people worked, learned, and communicated. Ironically, this groundbreaking innovation also sowed the seeds for the decline of IBM’s once-dominant mainframe business, as the world began shifting from centralized computing to the personal computer.