IBM 1950s, 1960’s & 1980 Thomas J. Watson led IBM’s transformation from a medium-sized maker of tabulating equipment and typewriters into a computer industry leader. John R. Opel (CEO) coincided with the beginning of a new era in computing. John F. Akers (CEO) focused on streaming operations and redeploying resources. 1950s: 701 vacuum tubes 1960s: IBM 407 Wiring Board 981: IBM PC – Model 5150 had 16 KB RAM and no floppy disk units, they used cassettes to load and store programs. 1982: IBM Instruments Computer System used a real time and multitasking operating system as well as standard programming languages: BASIC, PASCAL, FORTRAN. 1984: IBM PC AT has a new version of the OS: MS DOS 3.0, which can use the new floppy disk format.   Shi Chun