Project Chess

Some employees opposed IBM entering the market. One said, "Why on earth would you care about the personal computer? It has nothing at all to do with office automation." "Besides", he added, "all it can do is cause embarrassment for IBM". The company had determined from studying the market for years, and building the prototypes during the 1970s, that IBM was unable to internally build a personal computer profitably.

IBM President John Opel was not among those skeptical of personal computers. He and CEO Frank Cary had created more than one dozen semi-autonomous "Independent Business Units" (IBU) to encourage innovation. After Lowe became the first head of the Entry Level Systems IBU in Boca Raton his team researched the market. Computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but told Lowe that the company could not design, sell, or service it as IBM had previously done. An IBM microcomputer, they said, must be composed of standard parts that store employees could repair. While dealers disliked Apple's business practices, including a shortage of the Apple II while the company focused on the more sophisticated Apple III, they saw no alternative because they doubted that IBM's traditional sales methods and bureaucracy would change.

Atari in 1980 proposed that it act as original equipment manufacturer for an IBM microcomputer. Aware that the company needed to enter the market quickly—even the schools in Broward County, near Boca Raton, purchased Apples—in July 1980 Lowe met with Opel, Cary, and others on the important Corporate Management Committee. He mentioned the Atari proposal, and also suggested acquiring Atari "because we can't do this within the culture of IBM". Lowe demonstrated the concept with an industrial design model based on the Atari 800 platform.

Instead of acquiring Atari, Cary ordered Lowe to build a personal computer within a year. The committee allowed him to form an independent group of employees—"the Dirty Dozen", led by engineer Bill Sydnes—which, Lowe promised, could design a prototype in 30 days. The crude prototype barely worked when he demonstrated it in August, but Lowe presented a detailed business plan that proposed that the new computer have an open architecture, use non-proprietary components and software, and be sold through retail stores, all contrary to IBM tradition.

The committee agreed that Lowe's approach was the most likely to succeed. With Opel's strong support, in October it approved turning the group into another IBU codenamed "Project Chess" to develop "Acorn", with unusually large funding to help achieve the goal of introducing the product within one year of the August demonstration. After Lowe's promotion in November Don Estridge became the head of Chess, and by January 1981 the team made its first demonstration of the computer within IBM. Other key members included Sydnes, Lewis Eggebrecht, David Bradley, Mark Dean, and David O'Connor. Many were already hobbyists who owned their own computers including Estridge, who had an Apple II. After the team received permission to expand to 150 by the end of 1980, it received more than 500 calls in one day from IBM employees interested in joining the IBU.

First commercial computer

   In 1942, Konrad Zuse begin working on the Z4 that later became the first commercial computer. The computer was sold to Eduard Stiefel, a mathematician of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich on July 12, 1950.

Third-party distribution

Because IBM had no retail experience, the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck provided important knowledge of the marketplace. ComputerLand and Sears became the main outlets for the new product. More than 190 Computerland stores already existed, while Sears was in the process of creating a handful of in-store computer centers for sale of the new product. This guaranteed IBM widespread distribution across the U.S.

Targeting the new PC at the home market, Sears Roebuck sales failed to live up to expectations. This unfavorable outcome revealed that the strategy of targeting the office market was the key to higher sales.

MODELS

PC

IBM PC 5150.

The CGA video card, with a suitable modulator, could use an NTSC television set or an RGBi monitor for display; IBM's RGBi monitor was their display model 5153. The other option that was offered by IBM was an MDA and their monochrome display model 5151. It was possible to install both an MDA and a CGA card and use both monitors concurrently if supported by the application program. For example, AutoCAD, Lotus 1-2-3 and others allowed use of a CGA Monitor for graphics and a separate monochrome monitor for text menus. Some model 5150 PCs with CGA monitors and a printer port also included the MDA adapter by default, because IBM provided the MDA port and printer port on the same adapter card; it was in fact an MDA/printer port combo card.

Although cassette tape was originally envisioned by IBM as a low-budget storage alternative, the most commonly used medium was the floppy disk. The 5150 was available with one or two 5-1/4" floppy drives - with two drives the program disc(s) would be in drive A, while drive B would hold the disc(s) for working files; with one drive the user had to swap program and file discs into the single drive. For models without any drives or storage medium, IBM intended users to connect their own cassette recorder via the 5150's cassette socket. The cassette tape socket was physically the same DIN plug as the keyboard socket and next to it, but electrically completely different.

A hard disk could not be installed into the 5150's system unit without changing to a higher-rated power supply. The "IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis" came with its own power supply and one 10 MB hard disk and allowed the installation of a second hard disk. The system unit had five expansion slots, and the expansion unit had eight; however, one of the system unit's slots and one of the expansion unit's slots had to be occupied by the Extender Card and Receiver Card, respectively, which were needed to connect the expansion unit to the system unit and make the expansion unit's other slots available, for a total of 11 slots. A working configuration required that some of the slots be occupied by display, disk, and I/O adapters, as none of these were built into the 5150's motherboard; the only motherboard external connectors were the keyboard and cassette ports.

The simple PC speaker sound hardware was also on board.

The original PC's maximum memory using IBM parts was 256 kB, achievable through the installation of 64 kB on the motherboard and three 64 kB expansion cards. The processor was an Intel 8088 running at 4.77 MHz, 4/3 the standard NTSC color burst frequency of 315/88 = 3.57954[a] MHz. (In early units, the Intel 8088 used was a 1978 version, later were 1978/81/2 versions of the Intel chip; second-sourced AMDs were used after 1983). Some owners replaced the 8088 with an NEC V20 for a slight increase in processing speed and support for real mode 80186 instructions. The V20 gained its speed increase through the use of a hardware multiplier which the 8088 lacked. An Intel 8087 co-processor could also be added for hardware floating-point arithmetic.

IBM sold the first IBM PCs in configurations with 16 or 64 kB of RAM preinstalled using either nine or thirty-six 16-kilobit DRAM chips. (The ninth bit was used for parity checking of memory.) After the IBM XT shipped, the IBM PC motherboard was configured more like the XTs motherboard with 8 narrower slots[dubious – discuss], as well as the same RAM configuration as the IBM XT. (64 kB in one bank, expandable to 256kB by populating the other 3 banks.)

Although the TV-compatible video board, cassette port and Federal Communications Commission Class B certification were all aimed at making it a home computer, the original PC proved too expensive for the home market. At introduction, a PC with 64 kB of RAM and a single 5.25-inch floppy drive and monitor sold for US $3,005 (equivalent to $7,822 in 2016), while the cheapest configuration (US $1,565) that had no floppy drives, only 16 kB RAM, and no monitor (again, under the expectation that users would connect their existing TV sets and cassette recorders) proved too unattractive and low-spec, even for its time (cf. footnotes to the above IBM PC range table). While the 5150 did not become a top selling home computer, its floppy-based configuration became an unexpectedly large success with businesses.

XT

The "IBM Personal Computer XT", IBM model 5160, was introduced two years after the PC and featured a 10 megabyte hard drive. It had eight expansion slots but the same processor and clock speed as the PC. The XT had no cassette jack, but still had the Cassette Basic interpreter in ROMs.

The XT could take 256 kB of memory on the main board (using 64 kbit DRAM); later models were expandable to 640 kB. The remaining 384 kilobytes of the 8088 address space were used for the BIOS ROM, adapter ROM and RAM space, including video RAM space. It was usually sold with a Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) video card or a CGA video card.

The eight expansion slots were the same as the model 5150 but were spaced closer together. Although rare, a card designed for the 5150 would be wide enough to obstruct the adjacent slot in an XT.Because of the spacing, an XT motherboard would not fit into a case designed for the PC motherboard, but the slots and peripheral cards were compatible. The XT expansion bus (later called "8 bit Industry Standard Architecture" (ISA) by competitors) was retained in the IBM AT, which added connectors for some slots to allow 16-bit transfers; 8 bit cards could be used in an AT.

XT/370

The "IBM Personal Computer XT/370" was an XT with three custom 8-bit cards: the processor card (370PC-P) contained a modified Motorola 68000 chip, microcoded to execute System/370 instructions, a second 68000 to handle bus arbitration and memory transfers, and a modified 8087 to emulate the S/370 floating point instructions. The second card (370PC-M) connected to the first and contained 512 kB of memory. The third card (PC3277-EM), was a 3270 terminal emulator necessary to install the system software for the VM/PC software to run the processors.

The computer booted into DOS, then ran the VM/PC Control Program.

PCjr

The "IBM PCjr" was IBM's first attempt to enter the market for relatively inexpensive educational and home-use personal computers. The PCjr, IBM model number 4860, retained the IBM PC's 8088 CPU and BIOS interface for compatibility, but its cost and differences in the PCjr's architecture, as well as other design and implementation decisions, eventually led to the PCjr, and the related IBM JX, being commercial failures.

Portable

The "IBM Portable Personal Computer" 5155 model 68 was an early portable computer developed by IBM after the success of Compaq's suitcase-size portable machine (the Compaq Portable). It was released in February, 1984, and was eventually replaced by the IBM Convertible.

The Portable was an XT motherboard, transplanted into a Compaq-style luggable case. The system featured 256 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 512 kB), an added CGA card connected to an internal monochrome (amber) composite monitor, and one or two half-height 5.25" 360K floppy disk drives. Unlike the Compaq Portable, which used a dual-mode monitor and special display card, IBM used a stock CGA board and a composite monitor, which had lower resolution. It could however, display color if connected to an external monitor or television.

AT

The "IBM Personal Computer/AT" (model 5170), announced August 15, 1984, used an Intel 80286 processor, originally running at 6 MHz. It had a 16-bit ISA bus and 20 MB hard drive. A faster model, running at 8 MHz and sporting a 30-megabyte hard disk was introduced in 1986.

The AT was designed to support multitasking; the new SysRq (System request key), little noted and often overlooked, is part of this design, as is the 80286 itself, the first Intel 16-bit processor with multitasking features (i.e. the 80286 protected mode). IBM made some attempt at marketing the AT as a multi-user machine, but it sold mainly as a faster PC for power users. For the most part, IBM PC/ATs were used as more powerful DOS (single-tasking) personal computers, in the literal sense of the PC name.

Early PC/ATs were plagued with reliability problems, in part because of some software and hardware incompatibilities, but mostly related to the internal 20 MB hard disk, and High Density Floppy Disk Drive.

While some people blamed IBM's hard disk controller card and others blamed the hard disk manufacturer Computer Memories Inc. (CMI), the IBM controller card worked fine with other drives, including CMI's 33-MB model. The problems introduced doubt about the computer and, for a while, even about the 286 architecture in general, but after IBM replaced the 20 MB CMI drives, the PC/AT proved reliable and became a lasting industry standard.

IBM AT's Drive parameter table listed the CMI-33 as having 615 cylinders instead of the 640 the drive was designed with, as to make the size an even 30 MB. Those who re-used the drives mostly found that the 616th cylinder was bad due to it being used as a landing area.

AT/370

The "IBM Personal Computer AT/370" was an AT with two custom 16-bit cards, running almost exactly the same setup as the XT/370.

Convertible

The IBM PC Convertible, released April 3, 1986, was IBM's first laptop computer and was also the first IBM computer to utilize the 3.5" floppy disk which went on to become the standard. Like modern laptops, it featured power management and the ability to run from batteries. It was the follow-up to the IBM Portable and was model number 5140. The concept and the design of the body was made by the German industrial designer Richard Sapper.

It utilized an Intel 80c88 CPU (a CMOS version of the Intel 8088) running at 4.77 MHz, 256 kB of RAM (expandable to 640 kB), dual 720 kB 3.5" floppy drives, and a monochrome CGA-compatible LCD screen at a price of $2,000. It weighed 13 pounds (5.8 kg) and featured a built-in carrying handle.

The PC Convertible had expansion capabilities through a proprietary ISA bus-based port on the rear of the machine. Extension modules, including a small printer and a video output module, could be snapped into place. The machine could also take an internal modem, but there was no room for an internal hard disk.

Next-generation IBM PS/2

The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models; it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus completely with Micro Channel Architecture.

University of Technology Sydney

The New South Wales Institute of Technology was established in 1964. The School of Design of the former Sydney College of the Arts was incorporated into the Institute on 25 January 1988.On 1 January 1990, the Institute of Technical and Adult Teacher Education and the Kuring-gai College of Advanced Education were amalgamated with the existing University of Technology, Sydney to form the current UTS. On 1 August 2015, the comma was removed from the University’s title to become the current University of Technology Sydney.UTS is a dynamic and innovative university in central Sydney. One of Australia’s leading universities of technology, UTS has a distinct model of learning, strong research performance and a leading reputation for engagement with industry and the professions.

UTS has a culturally diverse campus life and vibrant international exchange study and research programs that prepare graduates for the workplaces of today and the future.Our City campus is in the heart of Sydney's creative precinct and alongside Sydney's central business district. Over the next three years, the final phase of our City Campus Master Plan will deliver a state-of-the-art campus to meet the needs of 21st century students.Our Strategic Plan outlines our vision to be a world‑leading university of technology and provides a strong statement about UTS’s aspirations for our third decade.UTS is part of the Australian Technology Network of universities: a group of five prominent universities committed to working with industry and government to deliver practical and professional courses.With a total enrolment of over 40,000 students. UTS offers over 130 undergraduate and 210 postgraduate courses across traditional and emerging disciplines such as architecture, built environment, business, communication, design, education, engineering, information technology, international studies, law, midwifery, nursing, pharmacy and science.

2.Faculty of University of Technology Sydney

UTS offers undergraduate and postgraduate coursework and research degrees through the following eight faculties and schools:

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Communication

Education

International Studies

UTS Business School

Postgraduate Programs

Accounting Discipline Group

Economics Discipline Group

Finance Discipline Group

Management Discipline Group

Marketing Discipline Group

Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building

School of Design

School of Architecture

School of Built Environment

Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Engineering

Information Technology

Faculty of Health

Health science

Health services management

Midwifery

Nursing

Primary health care

Public health

Sport and exercise

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Science

School of Life Sciences

School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Graduate School of Health

Clinical Psychology

Health Policy

Orthoptics

Pharmacy

3.Business at University of Technology Sydney

UTS Business School, part of the University of Technology, Sydney, delivers a broad range of degree programs at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and through its executive development programs. It is also recognised internationally for its innovative research.Its practical and integrative approach to business education prepares students for a world that demands more than specialist expertise in a particular discipline. Its graduates are ‘integrative thinkers’ who can combine traditional business skills with those from disciplines such as design and engineering to meet the challenges they face in a Globalised world.

UTS Business School consists of five academic disciplines: Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing. Our researchers take a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach – bringing together skills and knowledge from diverse fields – to tackle the critical problems faced by businesses and other public and private organisations today. Read more about UTS Business School Research.

Lenovo IdeaPad tablets

The IdeaPad tablets from Lenovo are consumer-oriented, Android and Windows 7 based tablet devices meant for home use or entertainment, rather than business purposes like the ThinkPad Tablet. Based on the Honeycomb version of the Android OS, the IdeaPad K1 tablet was released, followed by announcements of the IdeaPad A1 and P1 tablets. The IdeaPad P1 was based on Windows 7. 

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro

The Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is 13-inch tablet with a built-in projector. It has a 9,600 mAh battery that Lenovo claims will last up to 15 hours of continuous use. Its display has a resolution of 2,560 pixels by 1,440 pixels. 32 gigabytes of but-in storage come standard but can be expanded to 64 gigabytes with a microSD card. 

The Yoga Tablet 2 Pro, like previous Yoga tablets, has a thin body with a thick cylindrical base. The thick base is designed to make holding the deice in portrait mode more comfortable. The devices projector is mounted here. The projector has a resolution of 854 pixels by 480 pixels. Sound is provided by stereo speakers and a subwoofer but-in to the base.

A10

The Lenovo A10 tablet is a 10.1-inch tablet computer that runs Android.

2012

IdeaTab Lynx

The Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx was released in the United States in December 2012. The Lynx tablet sold for $599 and its Accutype keyboard base was priced at $149. The Lynx is an 11.6-inch tablet. The Lynx without the dock is 11.85 inches by 7.4 inches by 0.37 inches and weighs 1.41 pounds. This is approximately the same weight and thickness as the third generation Apple iPad. The keyboard dock weighs 1.45 pounds for a total 2.86 pounds. The Lynx runs the full-version of Windows 8 as opposed to Windows RT. The Lynx uses a 1.8 GHz dual-core Clovertrail Intel Atom Z2760 processor, 2GB of memory, and either 32GB or 64GB of eMMC flash storage. The 11.6-inch in-plane switching display has a resolution of 1,366 x 768 resolution and supports five-point capacitive multitouch. Micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports and a microSD card slot are on Lynx table. The keyboard dock has two standard USB 2.0 ports. The Lynx also has Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networking, stereo speakers, dual microphones, a 2-megapixel front-facing webcam.

In its review of the Lynx, CNET wrote: "The real question is, how will the Lynx stand out? One answer might be its weight. Despite its 11.6-inch screen, the tablet felt shockingly light when we held it at Lenovo's launch event. Although Lenovo says it's 1.44 pounds, the Lynx's tablet portion is closer in feel to a Kindle than an iPad, but with a larger display than either. The keyboard dock takes away from the Lynx's airiness, of course, although the two at least feel solidly linked when you use them together. The latch is so secure that you don't have to worry about accidentally dislodging the screen. We were also happy with the responsiveness of the Lynx's touchscreen, although we didn't get a chance to really challenge it during our five minute hands-on."

IdeaPad K2

IdeaPad K2 is 1920x1200 pixel, 10.1-inch IPS panel tablet with Tegra 3 running at 1.7 GHz , 2GB RAM, Fingerprint scanner, and keyboard dock. It is known as LePad K2 or LePad K2010 in China. IdeaPad K2 is meant for high-end gamers and business users. Lenovo has displayed this tablet in the "New Product showcase" for India.

IdeaTab S2109

IdeaTab S2109 is 1024 x 768 pixels with 4:3 aspect ratio, 9.7-inch IPS display with OMAP 4430 SoC ,1GB RAM. 3 versions with 8, 16 or 32 GB included storage capacity and Android 4.0.

IdeaTab S2110

IdeaTab S2110. 10.1-inch IPS display tablet using Qualcomm 1.5 GHz SoC with 1GB RAM and Android 4.0.

5 MP rear camera with autofocus and led flash

1.3 MP front webcam

720P playback

AGPS able to find position in 10 seconds on 3G model

3G and WiFi

FM radio tuner

1.3 lbs

IdeaTab A2109

Android 4.0.4/4.1.1 with Lenovo skin

9" TFT 1280x800 resolution (169 PPI) in 16:10 aspect ratio

Quad Core 1.3 GHz Tegra 3 with ULP GeForce GPU and 1GB RAM

3.2 MP rear camera, 1.3 MP front camera

WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Compass

11mm thickness

2011

Three Tablets were announced by Lenovo in the IdeaPad Tablet line in 2011: the IdeaPad K1, A1 and P1.

IdeaPad K1

The IdeaPad K1 Tablet was announced in July 2011. The IdeaPad K1 tablet offered the following specifications:

Processor: NVIDIA Tegra T20 1.0 GHz

Operating system: Android 3.1

Dimensions : 10.4 x 7.4 x 0.5

Weight: less than 1.7 pounds

Battery life: up to 10 hours

RAM: up to 1GB DDR2

Storage: up to 64GB SSD

Connectivity: Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n WiFi

Slots: MicroSD card reader

Ports: mini HDMI, optional docking port

Camera: 2 megapixel , 5 megapixel 

Colors – Black, White, Red

Full Flash support

Integrated cloud storage 

Support: 1-year base system warranty, 2-year warranty extension plan

More than 30 free apps were pre-loaded on the IdeaPad, including Angry Birds HD, Need for Speed: Shift, Kindle for Android, Documents To Go, and Norton Mobile Security.

In its review, Gizmodo appreciated the value that the IdeaPad K1 represented, with the offer of a 32GB tablet for only $499.The reviewer described the Tablet as one of the most attractive that Gizmodo had reviewed, with its “matte, chrome-colored side and back trim and deep red back panel”. The IdeaPad K1 tablet featured interface improvements as compared to other Android 3.1 tablets. Gizmodo indicated that the battery life was above average for Android Tablets: 8 hours and 3 minutes, despite continuous Web surfing over Wi-fi.

The IdeaPad K1 was summarized by LAPTOP Magazine as offering “a strong mix of style, performance, and uniquely compelling enhancements to the Android 3.1 UI”.

IdeaPad A1

The IdeaPad A1 Tablet was announced in September 2011. The PCWorld review indicated that the A1 woal storage and other variants with more storage would be made available. The A1 contained a Micruld be the first 7-inch tablet prices at $200 or less. The reviewer stated that the low price was achieved through a reduction in storage capacity, not functionality. The basic unit offered 2GB of interno SD card slot, which allowed expansion of up to 32GB.

The A1 tablet was powered by a single-core 1 GHz Cortex A8 processor. It was suggested by the reviewer that the "single-core CPU may be the reason why no Honeycomb is on board, and may explain how Lenovo can achieve its aggressive price".

A feature indicated to be "most notable for a tablet at this price" was the capacitive touch screen.This was in contrast to the resistive touch screen found on value tablets. The display also offered a higher-than average resolution, of 1024x600 pixels and 170 pixels per inch (ppi). The ppi value made the display sharper than even that of the Apple iPad 2, which offered only 132 ppi on a 9.7-inch screen.

The fact that the A1 included Android 2.3  as opposed to Android 3.2 , was indicated to be a point of concern. The reviewer said that those companies which did incorporate Android 2.2 or 2.3 only achieved this by making significant customizations to the on-board apps as well as the interface. At the time of announcement, Lenovo had not provided information on what customizations had been made, if any.

The IdeaPad A1 tablet was 0.47 inches thin and weighed 0.88 lbs. The A1 was offered in four different colors: white, black, pink, and light blue.

A feature of the A1 announced by Lenovo was the inclusion of a magnesium-alloy roll cage, which protected internal components through bumpers.Another key feature of the A1 was the GPS which did not require a data connection to be used.

IdeaPad P1

The IdeaPad P1 Tablet was different from both the IdeaPad K1 and ThinkPad Tablets in that it featured Windows 7 as the operating system instead of Android 3.1. Additionally, unlike the K1 and ThinkPad Tablets, the P1 Tablet included an Intel Atom processor as opposed to an NVIDIA Tegra processor. Lenovo IdeaPad P1 Windows tablet also preloaded with Adobe Flash Player 10.3, Lenovo App Shop, Microsoft Security Essentials and Lenovo App Manager for switch from entertainment to productivity apps like send email, games, or watch the online movies.

The specifications of the IdeaPad P1 are as follows

Processor: Intel Atom 1.5 GHz

Operating system: Windows 7

Display: 10.1 inch, 1280x800 capacitive touchscreen with support for an optional capacitive stylus

RAM: up to 2GB DDR2

Storage: up to 64GB SSD

Connectivity: Bluetooth, optional 3G, WiFi

Camera: 2MP front-facing webcam

Ports: USB 2.0, docking port

Slots: Micro SD

Audio: 1.5W speaker, microphone, headset connectors

Weight: 1.75 lbs

Dimensions : 10.9 x 0.57 x 7.24

Battery life: 6 hours