PC's Limited Microcomputer
date: label: date made
content: 1985
name: label: maker
content: Dell Inc.
notes: label: Description
content: In 1984 Michael Dell was a freshman at the University of Texas, building PCs and selling them to fellow students and faculty. By 1985 Dell’s company, PC’s Limited, was selling Turbo PC IBM clones that came with an Intel 8088 microprocessor, 640 kilobytes of RAM, a 360-kilobytes drive, a 130-watt power supply, eight expansion slots, and the ability to connect to local area networks (LAN). One of Dell’s selling points was the option to order a PC over the phone with customized components. This connection with the consumer and the ability to keep inventory low until a computer was ordered gave Dell a distinct business advantage going forward. This computer was sold to Clint Johnson, a freelance writer in North Carolina. In 2005 he donated the computer back to Dell Inc., which gave it to the Museum in 2007.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Owen Edwards, “Baby Dell,” <i>Smithsonian Magazine</i>, August 2007.
label: Description
content: Nancy Fowler Koehn, <i>Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell</i> (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001), 276–305.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
label: See more items in
content: Computers & Business Machines
label: See more items in
content: American Enterprise
label: Exhibition
content: American Enterprise
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Dell Inc.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2007.0042.01
label: catalog number
content: 2007.0042.01
label: accession number
content: 2007.0042
objectType: label: Object Name
content: microcomputer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 in x 19 3/4 in x 17 in; 15.24 cm x 50.165 cm x 43.18 cm