Episodes

  • 25: On PC Clones & The End of the Road for IBM’s Personal Computer Business
    Jan 6 2022
    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.
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    39 mins
  • 24: Later IBM PC Models
    Dec 3 2021
    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.
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    46 mins
  • 23: IBM's Search for an Operating System
    Nov 23 2021
    With its PC built, IBM needed to find an operating system that would run on it. Its choice would change the computer industry forever.
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    26 mins
  • 22: Building the Personal Computer
    Nov 4 2021
    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.
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    28 mins
  • 21: The International Business Machines Corporation
    Oct 21 2021
    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.
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    45 mins
  • 20: Windows Vista
    Jun 3 2021
    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.
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    48 mins
  • 19: The Apple Lisa
    May 21 2021
    In the early 1980s, Apple launched a computer with a GUI and mouse ... that wasn't the Macintosh.
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    38 mins
  • 18: The Google Graveyard Draft
    May 6 2021
    Google has a knack for shutting down products. This episode, Stephen and Quinn talk about a handful of them.
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    1 hr and 10 mins