Baby Dell
A proto PC harkens back to the birth of an industry
- By Owen Edwards
- Smithsonian magazine, August 2007, Subscribe
When he was 15, in 1980, Michael Dell took apart an Apple II computer and reassembled it, much as an earlier generation of teenagers had taken apart the engines of their Fords and Chevies. A few years later, Dell, by then a pre-med student at the University of Texas at Austin and founder of a small company he called PC's Limited, was putting together computers from components and selling the machines to fellow students.
Dell never became a doctor, but he did all right. In 2007, his net worth was reported to exceed $14.2 billion. Along with other pioneers in a nascent industry—among them Steve Jobs and Bill Gates—Dell joined one of his generation's most select clubs—self-made tech moguls.
Of course, willing consumers were essential to his success. One of them was Clint Johnson, a freelance writer living outside Jefferson, North Carolina. In 1985, at age 32, Johnson bade farewell to his Remington typewriter and ordered a PC's Limited Turbo computer. He was customer number 00100. "In those days," he recalls, "there wasn't any Internet or big box electronic store where you could get information about computers. I ended up asking the tech guys at the corporate offices of Red Lobster [where Johnson worked] what they'd recommend. The reason I decided on a PC's Limited machine was that you could order over the phone and they'd deliver it."
The PC's Limited, of course, remains the model that defines Dell Computers. Johnson's pre-Dell computer featured a 10-megabyte hard drive and a 5.25-inch floppy drive (back when floppies really were floppy). To compare the PC's Limited Turbo with any current desktop (or even laptop) is, of course, to set a BB gun against an ICBM. The monitor, made by Amdek, had a dark screen with low-contrast amber letters and numbers, the digital equivalent of shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. The complete package cost Johnson $895. "It always sounded as if it were coming apart," Johnson recalls. "I never did figure out why."
When Johnson read a 1987 BusinessWeek article about Dell and his company, he "recognized that I had a historic artifact, an early product of what is now a Fortune 50 company. So when I moved up to a newer computer, I wrapped it up and put it in the attic." At the keyboard of several later Dell computers, Johnson went on to write several books (his most recent, A Politically Incorrect Guide to the South). But, he says, "I wrote a lot of articles on that first machine." Some years ago, Johnson phoned Dell's PR department to ask if there might be interest in his relic. "All I got for my trouble," he recalls, "was a plastic Dell coffee cup."
But in 2005, when Dell opened a new factory in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, not far from where Johnson and his wife, Barbara, were living at the time, he tried again. His hope was to trade his piece of digital history for the latest Dell. This time he reached Donna Oldham in the PR office; she readily agreed to the trade.
Soon after, Dell offered the computer to David K. Allison, a curator at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH). Allison recognized that it would fit well into what he calls the museum's "rich collection of early personal computers, including an Altair and an Apple Lisa." The Johnson computer is on temporary display in the "Treasures of American History" exhibition, housed at the Air and Space Museum until the renovated NMAH opens in 2008.
That Michael Dell had never tried to acquire a PC's Limited computer as his company grew did not surprise Allison. "Entrepreneurs aren't thinking about the past," he says, "they're focused on tomorrow." Dell, 42, may still be focusing on tomorrow, but the PC's Limited Turbo did evoke a hint of nostalgia. At the Smithsonian's donation ceremony in May, Dell disclosed that he might have assembled this very Dell himself; he was still working on the factory floor in 1985. When asked if the machine had been booted up since the company reacquired it, Dell replied that it hadn't. "It's out of warranty," he said.
Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.
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Comments (5)
I started working with a friend who started his own company (Austin Texas Systems [ATS] in 1984-1985 in Austin. We, in addition to selling cabeling and networking, began to build "IBM cloans". Our main competetor was Dell, in fact we traded parts with them at times. I met him, breiefly though I had no Idea who he would become. I went on to other things, and heard nothing more about him until I started working with the State years later. I was Visiting a state facality (now part of Tx. Workforce Commission) in Amarillo and noticed all of their offices were using Dell Computers. Thats when I realized I should have stayed in th e industry. But life goes on, and now I can look back and know I was there when it all began. Oh well, I did OK with my choices, but sometimes I wonder, what if I had stuck around, and what if we would have joined with Dell? But thats the way things go! Way to Go Mr Dell!!!
Posted by Bill Norrid on January 3,2013 | 03:14 PM
Indeed a very good read! Very informative post with pretty good insight on all aspects of the topic! Will keep visiting in future too!
Posted by dell computers on May 19,2011 | 02:56 AM
No computers are without their kinks, but Dells truly are fantastic computers. I'd never own anything else!
Posted by Margaret on March 7,2010 | 06:21 PM
My first computer was not as dell, but my second one was. My second was bought in 98, and has been used for 11 years! We finally put it into storage a couple of months ago. Right now, I am currently using a 3-4 year old dell laptop, and works great. My next computer will probably be a dell.
Posted by Matthew Horn on February 23,2010 | 12:31 PM
I have a PC's Limited computer with monitor and keyboard in storage and wondered if there's anyone else who might value this computer as part of history. I worked at PC's limited from 1985 to 1986 as well.
Posted by Sandi Etheredge on June 2,2008 | 03:16 PM