IBM's 5150 PC turns 25

Tomorrow it will be 25 years since the world was introduced to a meek-looking, clunky steel box that would eventually change the way the entire world looked at computers. At the price of $1,556, IBM's first personal computer called the IBM 5150 was released. With mass availability made possible by IBM and its affordable price, both businesses and homes everywhere were able to partake in personal computing.

Successor to the 5100 which had been released six years earlier, the 5150 was the first real success home computing had seen, finally finding a fit in what people predicted for years was an unsuitable market. The different approach in development and construction resulted in a cheap-to-build, easy to replicate PC that was a conglomerate of parts. A team of 12 developers put it all together, and in doing so sparked the start of several decades of explosive growth, which is still somewhat affecting us today.

While many continue to predict the end of the personal home computer as we know it, it's really interesting how something that changed the world so much, began just a few short decades ago.