#25: On PC Clones & The End of the Road for IBM’s Personal Computer Business

January 6th, 2022 · 38 minutes

IBM quickly lost control of the market it had helped create, going from industry-leader to quietly exiting the personal computer business in just a couple of decades.

#24: Later IBM PC Models

December 3rd, 2021 · 26 minutes

The first IBM PC kicked off what would be a line of computers that would be sold through the 1980s. This week, Quinn and Stephen hit the high points of this beige wave.

#23: IBM's Search for an Operating System

November 23rd, 2021 · 26 minutes

With its PC built, IBM needed to find an operating system that would run on it. Its choice would change the computer industry forever.

#22: Building the Personal Computer

November 4th, 2021 · 28 minutes

The IBM Personal Computer was developed in a shockingly short period of time. This time, Quinn and Stephen discuss the machine's hardware as well as some of the company's earlier attempts at personal computers.

#21: The International Business Machines Corporation

October 21st, 2021 · 45 minutes

This season on Flashback, Quinn and Stephen are covering the rise — and fall — of IBM's PC business, but first: some background on the enormous company that Apple and so many others lived in the shadow of back in the 80s.

#20: Windows Vista

June 3rd, 2021 · 48 minutes

The story of Windows Vista is a complicated one. Born from a long and troubled development cycle, it wasn't free of problems at launch, but hardware OEMs and others didn't do much to help its reputation.

#19: The Apple Lisa

May 21st, 2021 · 38 minutes

In the early 1980s, Apple launched a computer with a GUI and mouse ... that wasn't the Macintosh.

#18: The Google Graveyard Draft

May 6th, 2021 · 69 minutes

Google has a knack for shutting down products. This episode, Stephen and Quinn talk about a handful of them.

#17: The Palm Foleo

April 22nd, 2021 · 46 minutes

A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion. A phone. An email terminal. A web-browsing portable companion.

Are you getting it? These are not three devices.

It's two devices, and we're calling them your Palm phone and Foleo.

#16: ROKR: The iTunes Phone

April 8th, 2021 · 52 minutes

A year and a half before the iPhone was introduced, Apple took the stage to announce a very, very different product: the iTunes phone, built in partnership with Motorola and Cingular.