Mark Dean: The Inventor Who Made the Computer Personal

Dr. Mark Dean has a superpower. He wasn’t born with it. He wasn’t
exposed to high levels of radiation. It’s a power he learned from
his father. And because of it, he was able to revolutionize the
personal computer. 

David Bradley explains how in the 1980s, IBM had a reputation for
building big, enterprise mainframes. No one believed IBM could
make a competitive PC. But that’s exactly what “Project Chess”
was tasked with creating. Tony Hey describes the monumental shift
in strategy it was for IBM to enter the PC market. Pete Martinez
and Dennis Moeller recount their days working with Mark on the
skunkworks project. And how IBM's strategy for creating a
computer in under a year changed the personal computing industry
forever—opening it to innovators outside the walls of
IBM. 

Mark Dean holds 3 of the 9 patents for the IBM 5150—the first IBM
PC—including the revolutionary ISA bus. He then went on to lead
the team that created the first gigahertz microprocessor, and
eventually taught at the University of Tennessee. Mwamba Bowa
shares her most cherished lesson from the inventor—how to
cultivate that super power for herself. 


Clips of Mark Dean courtesy of Susan "Suze" Shaner, Principal of
Sage Leadership Strategies, from a Comcast Cable interview,
November 2009, and from the American Museum of Science &
Energy featured talk, August 2019.

If you want to read up on some of our research on Dr. Mark Dean,
you can check out all our bonus material over at
redhat.com/commandlineheroes. 

Follow along with the episode transcript.