PCs are now 20 years old, and still need improving
by Alan Zisman (c)
2001.
First published in Business
in Vancouver,
ISSUE 620: September 11, 2001-- The high-tech office column
Happy birthday, IBM-style personal
computers!
The PC, IBM's original Personal Computer, was 20 years
old this August,
an occasion marked by a celebration sponsored by Intel and Microsoft
but, ironically, not IBM.
Leave aside the fact that IBM's 1981 Personal Computer
was not the first
personal computer; at that date, there was already a vibrant
micro-computer
industry with companies including Apple, Commodore, Atari
and many, many more. And let's also leave aside that with the market
for
personal computers in the doldrums, this summer was not the best of
times
to be celebrating.
Nevertheless, IBM's decision to enter the market for
personal computers
was important in several ways. First, it legitimized the personal
computer.
Up until then, personal computers users were most often hobbyists;
afterwards,
PCs were increasingly likely to show up on business desktops.
Moreover, IBM created its first personal computer in
an uncharacteristic
way. Much of it was built with off-the-shelf components, from Intel's
8088
processor to Microsoft's DOS operating system. With its Purple Book
spelling
out the PC's specifications, IBM hoped to make it easy for third
parties
to create add-in components. Instead, they made it easy for
competitors,
starting with Compaq, to create PC clones.
The result is today's fiercely competitive industry,
where every PC
store is able to assemble its own computers from standardized parts.
That first PC, by today's standards, wasn't much.
Sixteen kilobytes
of RAM was standard, with the first-generation motherboards able to
hold
up to 64 kb, making the 640-kb-limit built into DOS seem more
reasonable.
Today's business PCs ship with 128 megabytes, 8,000 times as much. That
first PC had no hard drive, just a floppy drive for diskettes that
could
store up to 160 kb of data. (Optionally, a cassette tape drive could be
attached.) PCs today routinely include 20-gigabyte hard drives offering
125,000 times as much storage.
That original Intel CPU ran at 4.77 megahertz, a
speed-demon for its
time. The Apple II, for instance, meandered along at 1 MHz. Typical
low-end
PCs today are offering 800-MHz processors; Intel is expected to release
2-Ghz (2,000-MHz) versions any day now.
Monitors came in your choice of green text on black
"monochrome" or
four very ugly colours. No mouse; all commands were typed in. And in
the
early generations of software, no consistent user interface. Word
processor
users memorized one set of commands if they used Wordstar and a
different
set of commands to use Wordperfect. Spreadsheet users learned still
another
set of commands to master Lotus 1-2-3.
No sense in gloating, however. Today's PCs (and Macs,
as well) are still
overly complex systems, each with its own set of rules that too often
leave
users mystified. Partly this is the result of trying to remain
compatible
with the legacy of 20 years of more limited technology. Partly it is
because
engineers and programmers design computer hardware and software with
too
little contact with real users.
It's about time that our computers were instant-on,
like Palm and
Pocket Windows handheld devices. And there really shouldn't be the need
to reboot as often as most of us have to, either when we add new
hardware
or software or because the darn thing just isn't working right.
When I plug a Springboard module into my Visor
handheld,
the module automatically (and quickly) loads its drivers into the
operating
system and the applications to use it pop up on the desktop. That sort
of ease of use should be available on larger systems as well.
Maybe in another 20 years?