The PC

Don Estridge graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He joined IBM in June 1959 as a junior engineer, and held various positions in the Federal Systems Division and the General Systems Division throughout his career with the company. In 1981, Estridge was named director of Entry Systems Business, and took over responsibility for development of the IBM PC. He led the team of engineers tasked with bringing the PC to market within the one-year timeline dictated by the CMC. To meet this deadline, he made the decision to go to outside vendors for many components, including common hardware parts, the operating system and application software. He also decided on an open architecture for the IBM PC, allowing other manufacturers to produce and sell peripheral components and compatible software. Estridge later became general manager of Entry Level Systems, and was appointed IBM vice president in 1984. At the time of his death in a 1985 plane crash, more than one million IBM personal computers had been sold. In 1999, Estridge was identified in CIO Magazine as one of the people who “invented the enterprise.”

Bill Sydnes received a bachelor of science degree from Florida Atlantic University, and is a graduate of the IBM Executive Development Program at Cornell University. At IBM, Sydnes was manager of the IBM 5120 desktop computer, which was developed on time and on budget. So Bill Lowe selected Sydnes to lead the team of 12 hardware engineers working on the prototype for the microcomputer. At the time, IBM had no microprocessor ready for release, so Sydnes decided to use the Intel^® 8088 processor. He also chose Microsoft to supply the operating system and compiler. Sydnes accompanied Lowe to the CMC review, and noted at the time that other open and processing standards would be adopted to keep down costs. He went on to serve as product manager for the IBM PC Junior before leaving IBM in 1983.

Jack Sams was the engineer in charge of software development for the prototype. He had worked on the IBM System/23, and had spent a year building the BASIC compiler for it, pushing the product behind schedule. He didn’t want to repeat the same struggle with the new microcomputer, so he decided to license most of the software from an outside company. 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 Digital Research Intergalactic 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. The rest, as they say, is history.

H. L. Sparks was responsible for marketing, communications, sales and service, for what some industry observers have called the “most successful new product launch in history.” He got Sears Roebuck and ComputerLand executives involved early in the project, and relied on these retailers for important knowledge of the marketplace. They became the main sales outlets for the IBM PC. Sparks later developed the IBM authorized dealer network, before moving on to Compaq as vice president of sales and service.

Dave Bradley began at IBM after receiving a PhD from Purdue in 1975. He worked on the IBM Series/1 system, and in 1978, he developed the I/O system for the IBM System/23 Datamaster. Bradley was one of 12 engineers assigned to the microcomputer project. Bradley developed the ROM BIOS for the PC, and is credited by some for inventing the Control-Alt-Delete key combination to reboot the computer. This was meant to be used for developers, who found it so useful, they revealed the code to the public. Bradley went on to manage the BIOS and diagnostics for the IBM PC XT, and development of the Personal System 2 Model 30. He continued at IBM in various roles until his retirement in 2004. He holds seven US patents.

Bill Eggleston holds bachelor of arts and master of science degrees from the University of Michigan. He joined IBM as a sales representative in 1953, where he held several positions in marketing and product management before joining the Systems Development Division in 1966. In 1979, he became president of the General Products Division, where he was involved in the IBM PC project early on. Eggleston attended the CMC review with Bill Lowe and Bill Sydnes, where the initial prototype was presented. In September 1982, he was named directeur general des services techniques et fonctionnels, IBM Europe, and a member of the board of directors of IBM World Trade Europe/Middle East/Africa Corporation. Three years later, he became vice president of quality.