The Day After - Inventing the PC - page 132

petite for the same market was growing fast and that in less
than four months into his presidency at MCM another desktop
APL computer would appear, this time sporting not “ MCM ”
but the easily recognizable IBM logo. The decisions that Berg
was to make in response to the IBM challenge would be critical
to the acceptance of MCM products in the marketplace, and
indeed to MCM 's survival.
The IBM 5100 desktop computer was announced by IBM 's
General Systems Division in September 1975. It was intended
as a personal computing tool for applications in engineering,
accounting, research, and other areas that could benefit from
computer-based problem-solving tools. The computer was pro-
grammable in both BASIC and APL and was supported by
three libraries of problem-solving routines. There is some anec-
dotal evidence that the IBM 5100 was built in response to the
MCM /70 with its potential for serving the needs of small and
medium-sized businesses. What is known for certain, however,
is that IBM had tried to develop a small “personal” computer
on at least two other occasions in the past. The mid-1960s saw
the IBM 1570 workstation project, also known as “Elsie,” at
IBM 's Los Gatos Laboratory. Then, in the early 1970s, the IBM
Scientific Center in Palo Alto, California, was involved in the
SCAMP APL desktop computer initiative. However, none of
these early projects passed the prototype stage. The IBM 5100
was a different story: it was manufactured and sold, and IBM
made sure that the APL community was well informed about it.
By the fall of 1975, Berg was alarmed to see that some maga-
zines featured the IBM 5100 and mentioned other small systems
from Wang and Hewlett-Packard, but ignored MCM , as was the
case with Infosystems , whose IBM 5100 feature article was pub-
lished in the November 1975 issue. 1 Possibly distressed with this
seeming marginalization of MCM , Berg wrote an open letter to
the APL community, wrapping his concerns about the impact of