Fascinating half-hour film by Errol Morris celebrating the 100-year history of IBM. Countless systems we rely on everyday were invented by these hotshots 40 or more years ago, and no one’s been able to improve on them since. By the end, you have the impression that they pretty much invented everything.

via daring fireball

Anthony Hecht is The Stranger's Chief Technology Officer. He owns no monkeys.

11 replies on “They Were There”

  1. Hmmmmm, my grandad was an engineer for Big Blue from the early 50s until he died, way too young, in ’77. I’ll have to watch this carefully to see if he shows up in any photographs. Thanks for this!

  2. I <3 Errol Morris/Philip Glass joint ventures. As good as Standard Operating Procedures was, it would have been a million times better with Philip Glass’s music.

  3. And they sold the Nazis punchcard-sorting & handling machines, to help them track down their mutually-hated Jews. Watson, keepin’ it classy.

  6. IBM conceived the “PC” decades before its appearance.

    They just thought it would be a smart terminal hooked up to an IBM 360.

    CICS is a stateless protocol for terminal screens (classic green screens). Design-wise, it’s the same idea as http.

    Web and cloud computing seem to justify that vision…half a century later.

  9. I feckn hate IBM, I’ve worked on an iSeries for years and it’s a bunch of shit. Now I’m forced to migrate that shit to AIX. IBM can suck it, go linux! go open source community. Also, 70% of IBMs revenue is from consulting… cus their shit blows

  10. But…but…but…corporations are evil! They do no good! They suck the blood from the working man! How did this video get on Slog? The children! Think of the CHILDREN!!!

  11. IBM did, in fact, invent the PC. All others came after. I remember playing with my friend’s PC Jr just after Christmas in 1983. A PS2 machine took me all the way through college.

    Great filmmaking, and great story.

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