Computing gets personal - The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution - page 152

IBM archives, Bill Lowe and Don Estridge ( B.8.6 ) of the IBM lab in Boca Raton,
Florida, suggested the timescale required:

One analyst was quoted as saying that “IBM bringing out a personal computer
would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance.” During a meeting with top
executives in New York, Lowe claimed his group could develop a small new
computer within a year. The response: “You're on. Come back in two weeks
with a proposal.” 12

It was a controversial decision for IBM to enter the personal computer business.
One insider was even reported as saying:

Why on earth would you care about the personal computer? It has nothing at
all to do with office automation. It isn't a product for big companies that use
“real” computers. Besides, nothing much may come of this and all it can do is
cause embarrassment to IBM, because, in my opinion, we don't belong in the
personal computer business to begin with. 13

The two most important decisions made by Frank Cary, IBM's chairman and
CEO, were not only that the development of an IBM personal computer or PC
should go ahead, but also that its development could proceed outside of IBM's
normal processes. In particular, the Boca Raton team was free to build the sys-
tem using a non-IBM microprocessor, and they chose to use the new 16-bit Intel
8088 chip. An 8-bit microprocessor, as used in the first generation of personal
computers, could only access 8 bits of data in a single machine instruction.
The next generation microprocessors like Intel's 8088 could access and process
16 bits at a time. In a further significant break from IBM's standard practices,
Lowe also had permission to outsource the software to vendor companies. A
1979 business study undertaken for IBM evaluating the prospects for micropro-
cessor-based computers had advised the company not to develop proprietary
systems and applications because “in order to succeed IBM would need a lot of
third parties writing software for the new system.” 14 The conclusion was clear:
IBM would purchase an operating system from an outside company. This deci-
sion also implied that the vendor of the operating system could put its software
on non-IBM machines.
Jack Sams was the IBM engineer in charge of software development for
the PC prototype. In the summer of 1980, Sams led a delegation from IBM to
Microsoft's offices in Seattle, where they briefed Allen and Gates about their
top-secret effort to build an IBM personal computer, code-named Project Chess.
According to IBM historian Edward Bride:

B.8.6. Don Estridge (1937-85) led
Project Chess - the top-secret project
to develop an IBM PC at its Boca
Raton plant in Florida. In an unprec-
edented move by IBM, the machine
had an open architecture and used
third-party hardware and software.
Estridge died in a plane crash three
years after the PC's introduction - by
then the PC was a runaway success
and IBM had sold more than a mil-
lion machines.

Sams met with Bill Gates to evaluate whether Microsoft could handle the task
of writing a BASIC compiler for the IBM PC. This led to his recommendation
to William Lowe that they use Microsoft software in the final product. In
addition, when he was unable to make a deal with Intergalactic Digital
Research for the operating system, Sams and his team turned to Microsoft.
This led to the development of an operating system released by IBM as
PC-DOS and by Microsoft as MS-DOS. 15

Microsoft agreed to supply compilers not only for BASIC but also for FORTRAN,
COBOL, and Pascal, all delivered on IBM's tight timetable.