IBM

International Business Machines (or IBM for short) is a company that was founded in the 1920's.

Notable Inventions

• The Automated Teller Machine - A computerized teller (banker for britbongs) that allows you to skip lines at banks
• Hard Drives
• ThinkPads
• Every major computer system made after 1976. The computer you are using now (unless it is an Apple Computer) is considered an "IBM Compatible" machine. The actual IBM patents have run out, however some computer geeks still use the term "IBM Clone", as it is technically correct to say that nearly All PCs in use today are clones of the original IBM Personal Computer system(s). Wintel is a newer term for the same thing.
• Watson, the Artificial Intelligence robot that won multiple games of Jeopardy!
• Smart Cards

The Creation of the Free Software Movement

The GNU Project, as well as most similar movements, developed in the early 1980's. Previously, companies such as IBM, and other notable but forgettable ones, would give the academic institutions the software, as well as the Source Code. However, starting in the late 1960's, IBM began to slowly phase out this practice, providing only the software binaries.

By 1969, this slow phasing out became so intense that an Antitrust case was filed. United States v. International Business Machines claimed that they were attempting to create an illegal monopoly on the Computing Firm. This case was dragged out for an entire 13 years. The ruling of the case was that IBM be broken into two factions. However, the ownership of Software Patents, and the withholding of Software Code was deemed acceptable. RMS, our lord and savior, would not have this, and so he created our two main sources of enlightenment today.