As amazing as it may seem for a company we associate with something as modern as computers, IBM was founded on this day, June 16, all the way back in 1911.
It’s had some ups and downs since then – from helping the Nazis to helping put a man on the moon – but we’re more interested in the last few decades, and how the company has helped shape the world of video games.
Scroll through the gallery above and you’ll see just a few of the contributions IBM has made to gaming, some incredibly popular and well-known, others maybe a little less so.
Total Recall is a look back at the history of video games through their characters, franchises, developers and trends.
IBM PC – These days, we call a personal computer a personal computer. A PC. But back in the 1980’s and early 90’s, they were called IBM PCs, so strong was the company’s stranglehold on the market, which meant every time you picked up a PC game, or went looking for the PC games section, you were actually looking for the IBM PC (or IBM PC Compatible) section.
GEKKO – The Gekko was a custom chip supplied by IBM for Nintendo, to be used in its GameCube console. Rather than design an all-new chip, the Gekko was based on the PowerPC 750CXe, and was a big reason the GameCube packed a surprising punch given its cost and size.
XENON – The Xenon is the name of the chip, designed by IBM, that powers the Xbox 360 console. Originally part of a pair of chips that ran the machine at its launch in 2005, alongside AMD’s Xenos graphics processor unit, the Xenon now lives alongside the Xenos in the XCGPU, a combined chip designed for the Xbox 360 S console.
BROADWAY – The Broadway is the name of the chip IBM supplied to Nintendo for the GameCube’s successor, the Wii. As such, its performance is similar to that of the Gecko, though advances made between the consoles mean it does use less power
CELL – One of the biggest breakthroughs in computing in the past decade, the Cell microprocessor was designed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba. Cell is actually short for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, and the advanced processor technology is used in a variety of commercial, scientific and industrial computers (including supercomputers). We know it best, though, for the machine it made its debut in, the PlayStation 3 console. [image]
WII U – IBM is still an important part of the video game industry, as evidenced by the fact it’ll be providing processor for the first new home console since 2006, the Nintendo Wii U. This processor apparently uses some of the same technology featured in the Watson supercomputer.
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