IBM needed a computer. Fast.

• Instead of building everything from scratch, they bought parts off a shelf.
• A CPU from Intel, an OS from some kid named Bill Gates.
• They didn't think much of it, they left everything open.
• No locks. No licenses. No asking for permission.

That was 1981. The greatest accident in computing history.

Every manufacturer looked at the IBM PC and said, "We can do that.", and they did. And it all worked together perfectly. Not because anyone planned it. Not because some corporation sat in a boardroom and said openness was good, actually; But because IBM forgot to close the doors.

Your computer was yours.

Actually yours. You could open it, swap parts, break it, fix it. A machine from one company ran software from another ran hardware from a third and nobody asked anyone's permission for any of it.

The BIOS sat on a tiny chip on your motherboard. Dumb. Faithful. It did one thing: it booted whatever you threw at it. USB, floppy, CD, didn't matter. No questions asked.