The Day After - Inventing the PC - page 135

in the second half of the 1970s and early 1980s was MCM 's
handling of its own rivalry with IBM that had begun with the
introduction of the IBM 5100 computer.
Recycling the past
By the end of 1975, MCM had sold over 150 MCM /700s and
made consolidated profits of over $160,000 on sales of approxi-
mately $1.25 million. The sales forecasts for the next year were
uncertain. While MCM /700 had a number of advantages over
its IBM 5100 rival (the MCM computer was microprocessor-
based; it was smaller, lighter, less expensive, truly portable,
and featured an operating system), it was also very slow, used
a dated microprocessor, and had to rely on virtual memory to
compensate for its very limited amount of RAM .
MCM had to come up with a faster and more able computer
to compete successfully not only with the IBM 5100 but also
with scores of popular programmable calculators and desktop
computers, such as the Wang 2200 family of all-in-one desk-
tops introduced in 1973 or the Hewlett-Packard HP 9830 cal-
culator introduced in late 1972 and programmable in a dia-
lect of BASIC . Although programmable electronic calculators
were not designed to process the payroll or customer data of
a medium-scale company, their successful utilization as an ef-
ficient problem-solving tool in business, education, and engin-
eering had continued since the introduction of Olivetti's Pro-
gramma 101 desktop calculator in the mid-1960s.
Already in early 1974, MCM was researching possible direc-
tions for the development of new generation computers to re-
place the slow MCM /70 and maintain a safe technological dis-
tance from the competition. A year later, financially strained
and no longer the leader of the pack, MCM was carefully
weighing its options, looking for ways to build new hardware
by reusing as much of its existing technology as possible. One