On this day in 1986 newspapers reported that after years of Japanese-American battles in electronics, American tech company IBM became the world’s first computer manufacturer to use a megabit chip– a memory chip capable of storing one million bits of information– in a commercial product. It was a rare moment of glory for American computer makers, who were perceived to have lost the entire memory market to their Japanese competitors.
Jack D. Kuehler, the senior vice president of IBM at the time proudly pointed out that the megabit chip was not made in a fabrication laboratory in Tokyo, but in IBM’s own semiconductor operations in Essex Junction, Vermont. It was used in IBM’s Model 3090 mainframe computers, also known as the Sierra series.
The IBM 3090 Processor Complex – Image taken from IBM Archives
Thanks for jogging my “memory.” While I don’t recall this specific announcement, I was working in the first job I’d ever had where there was a PC. One only in each office, shared by six to eight people. It was an IBM dual floppy disc PC with no hard drive running in stand-alone mode (i.e., no network to connect to, just sneaker net). Instead of using e-mail, we used a telephone and the USPS.
Any news that is positive , relate to the US is good news to me . I remember ” Big Blue ” defeating a major Chess ace ; It is my personal opinion that a country like the USA must be vigilant ALLWAYS . Perhaps your effort is a catalyst to remind us . Thank you for sharing . In 1983 I bought my 1st computer , an IBM without hard drive . It started a steep
learning curve .
Really interersting news
Thanks very much!
“Big Blue” was the horrible monster that was going to eat away at all the dreams of Apple, Amiga, Zenix, Pilot, Novell NetWare, and Sun/OS. We soon found out that they couldn’t market their PC way out of a command line. Look at what WANG was doing in the same time frame and IBM appears ever sadder. Wang 2200 w/ 2200 CS package was very stable and support was outstanding.