DEC and IBM - history of computers

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) is a major hardware and computer producer company, founded by Kenneth Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. The main goal is creating computers for non-professional customers rather than programmers. From 1960s to 1970 company introduced the PDP series, where each new computer was better and cheaper than previous one.

The first Digital's product is PDP-1, which was much less expensive than dominating mainframes of IBM. The next the PDP-8 became the first minicomputer in the world. And the last one - the PDP-11 got popular because of its flexibility and being low in price.

After financials problems in 80s, DEC made an alliance with other leading corporations in the contracts with US Atomic Energy Commission. As the consequence, they closed the parallel between customer-oriented products and computers, made for government.

Another dominating company in this period was IBM. From 60s to 80s it occupied the mainframes market, but lost positions in sphere of high-performance computing.

In 1981 IBM involved the standard for micro-computing. Company introduced their first micro-computer named IBM PC. It's main feature was a compatibility with computers of IBM family.

In 1997 an IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the Garry Kasparov - the world chess champion. The artificial intelligence reached a brink of its development.