The PC Turns 30

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates

Well, sort of a quote from Bill Gates.

I got my first "personal" (meaning at home) computer in 1987. It was an Atari 1040ST. My decisioin was much to the chagrin of my supervisor at work, who had been advising me to buy an Intel PC because it would be compatible with what I was using at work. (No ulterior motives here, right?) He called the Atari a "toy" computer that was only used for games.

I was dazzled by it's vibrant color monitor and graphics. But in looking at the software that was available for it, it became obvious that devotees certainly didn't think of it as only a toy. It had contiguous and large addressing space (1 Meg!!, with upgrades to 4 Meg.) unlike the PC. The "productivity" software (the best at the time, more than a few out of my price range when I first started) came to include CAD (DynaCadd, Athena II, CAD-3D, Cyber Sculpt), DTP (Calamus, PageStream, Fleet Street Publisher), the standard "office" type products (1st Word, That's Write, LDW spreadsheet), programming languages (C, Pascal, Basic, Forth, Fortran, Assembly, etc.), and yes, games (I have some but don't remember the titles, as I never played games on the Atari, or any computer for that matter, with the exception of chess, occasionally).

I really was sad when it "died." The Atari "community" felt much more like a community vs. the PC community. It was small enough that you could meet, and get to know "its" movers and shakers. The program authors showed up at Atari computer "Fairs" to market their software. There was a fervor there that was beyond the PC. As a matter of fact, part of this "closeness" came from the very fact that PC advocates saw all of the 68000 machines, for the most part, as less than serious. And this drew the devotees of each computer together as "us against the 'PC' world." These other machines included the Macintosh (the first 68000-based machine on the scene) and the Amiga. Atari released others (TT and Falcon) and even tried their hand at getting in on the gaming market with a separate console/computer, the Jaguar, (which by the time they went belly up was very big on the PC -- so much for games meaning that a computer was only a toy!?)

There was an instance where my supervisor was trying to import some of our CAD drawings into Pagemaker but was having all sorts of problems with it. I took the CAD file to my local Atari dealer over the weekend and he used some of the "higher end" software that I didn't own to do exactly what my boss was trying to do at work. When I took the results in on Monday and casually showed my boss, he didn't say much but how could he? After one more incident related to DTP in general he never chided me anymore about my "toy" computer.

I still have mine stored away. I intended on setting it up again someday to enjoy it like the music from my youth. (Of course, my generation saw the birth of Rock & Roll, too.) But circumstances intervened that have put that idea on indefinite hold.

Now, looking back, I'm sure PC owners had that same rush that came with the idea of owning a computer. How ridiculously fascinating, right? The ability to program a technological marvel to do whatever it's hardware limits would allow. That fascination, for those old enough to remember the "birth" of the personal computer, will always color what a computer means. People who have grown up with computers can't appreciate them in the same way. That's just a given.

My generation saw the advent of TV, phone, and computer technology "emerge" and mature. We also saw the advent of space exploration. It has been suggested that our parents were the "greatest generation." But too many of them did not have the benefit of the education that their children got and couldn't appreciate these technological marvels as much. In that regard, I would label my generation as the "most fortunate" generation.

Despite these "golden" memories, I am jaded about technology and it's future these days. Technology has become like a golden calf. It is so far beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined (except of course a few, like da Vinci) that it boggles the mind to know that it has happened. But it is being used for far more nefarious means than it should be. Some of our recent ancestors saw that coming, too. (George Orwell, for instance -- he would have loved "cookies." And I've recently revisited the short-lived TV series, "Max Headroom" recently. It is wonderfully prescient about where technology was/is headed -- sorry for the pun.)

Technology (TV, computers, phone/computers, etc.) has grabbed man's consciousness in such a way as to crowd out life in a very literal and real way. There is much less a sense of an "inner" life. Far too many people, if they tallied their time, would find that a huge amount of their lives is spent fiddling with and interacting with technological devices. I hope I am wrong, but I think a time is coming when there will be a painful withdrawal from all of this, in a forced manner -- not by choice. I wish it were by choice, because that would mean a real improvement in man's understanding and appreciation of life on this planet.

What did the box look like

Well my kindle 3 E-Book looks like a tablet computer of Star Trek.

Hard to imagine so much has changed with the invention of the modern computer and the internet, harder to accept that most of us here are older than either of them.

Here's a quote we fell for many years ago "Oh yes the tape drive is the superior model and the way of the future, you don't want the 3 1/2" disk drive model".

Jack - Started life with a 64K Amstrad CPC464 (tape drive).....'Read Error b' (gaaaah).

just wondering, how much do you use your Kindle for reading ebooks? I got one as a gift and loaded quite a number of PDF "books" but have yet to really sit and "read" like it is a book.

I use it almost every day. I am a heavy reader and found the transition between paper and E-Ink to be rather easy, in fact I prefer E-ink over paper books now. No eye strain issues after reading around 50 books so far (including around 25 colour A3 comics compressed to a 6" screen format).

Note - there is a difference between E-ink and the colour screen versions, monochrome E-ink is generally much better for pure reading, so you will find reading E-ink easier on the eyes than reading text on a computer or tablet screen.

Just give it a go, I was used to the Kindle 3 after only my first book.

_{Jack - Eyeing up the new Kindle Fire tablet.}

I currently have a second generation Kindle (handed off my 1st gen to family). E-ink is my preferred reading media, even over print books. The non-backlit screen can even be read in bright sunlight but I have a LED equipped case for reading in dim/no light.

Besides the above, the convenience of carrying dozens of books and instant downloads is phenomenal.

I also have a Xoom with the Kindle reader installed but it (like most backlit screens) is much harder on the eyes. And, I want to see the new color Kindle but probably won't buy one for the above reasons.

Hooker

My first "computer" was a Texas Instruments TI59 programmable calculator, purchased in the late 1970's while attending University- I used it to do all of my computer programming courses (including graphical outputs on the accessory printer).

The next computer, closer to what one might consider a PC, was a Hewlett Packard Integral (from back in the days when Hewlett packard was still producing quality products, before they redefined themselves as a computer company). Powered by the Motorola 68000, running HP-UX (HP's version of Berkeley V Unix). I purchased this (paying about twice what I had paid for my new automobile) in the early 80's because my computer guru could not get his Apple to read a bunch of strain gages through a National Instruments card during a dynamic test. He wasted almost a week on that- running out of time, I went out and bought the cIntegral and within two hours of turning the machine on for the first time, I was taking data (from his National Instruments card). Continued to use it on up into the '90's for everything from data acquisition to light CAD (always had someone else doing the heavy CAD work). Finally switched to MS because I had a client that insisted that I work in Excel (about the only thing that ever came out of Redmond that was worthwhile). Finally migrated to Linux when upgrading to XP broke my accounting software...

First computer was an Apple II (1978), second was an Apple IIc. I gave up on Apple when they dumped the II's and pushed limited access Mac's.

First PC (at home) was IBM AT clone I bought to run CAD software at home that paralleled what I used at work. It was DOS based and it looked like a rectangular metal box (which it was ).

Most important development was GUI and WYSIWYG document editing and printing. Prior to WYSIWYG, I created and edited documents on VAX's with apps that required printer formatting codes (for dot matrix printers) such that you really didn't know what the document looked like until you retrieved it from the printer. Then you had to edit the formatting codes, reprint, look at doc, wash, rinse, rewash... What a waste of paper that was.

I don't speculate on future computer developments. Sorry.

Hooker

PS - in case the youngsters don't know, WYSIWYG = what you see is what you get.

My first computer was a mechanical analogue fire control computer used on Royal Navy ships in the 60's and later.

My next was a missile control computer for SeaSlug ship born guided missiles, it was huge and probably did not have the power of a good calculator today. All transistor logic.....separate ones!!!

I was working for Univac after 1973 and my first "proper" computer was a spinoff from the computer that was the onboard computer that went to the moon. I learnt a lot on those.

I built my own first computer from a kit, the Nascom 2. It cost me (then) a fortune. No floppies (too expensive like about $1000 each for 8" ones from Shugart), I had a modified stereo cassette player to store and load programs, worked well. I only threw it away a few years ago......

From the work Shugart drives I got my first tastes of the early SCSI where I later became a specialist for on many products that used it....

Working on computers gave me access to occasional good parts and company PCs, but I built my own first "real" PC in around 1983/4 (?) an AT286. I have had also 386, 486 (still have one in a Laptop) and many other later chips....

In fact I have built all my PCs (bought the individual parts) as I wanted to always have the maximum computer power for my money, I have only ever bought Laptops, never built one!! My first hard disk I bought in California for $150 with 125MB of storage........it was HUGE storage wise (for the time!!) 3.5 inch format as today....

I must have built at least 50 odd PCs over the years for myself and friends.....had a lot of fun.

Since intels awful marketing policy in 1999 with regard to AMD, I have only built PCs with AMD chips....never a single intel......the AMDs were seemingly always more reliable than (our company for example) intel ones anyway.....

Started with a TRS-80 and moved up to a Commodore PET and Vic-20 with a 3K upgrade card and Datacette's for memory!(still have all 3 and use them for games with the grandkids.

My first home computer was a VIC-20 with an audio cassett tape for external storage. My main reason for having it was to teach my daughter how to program in BASIC. As a teaching aid, we wrote a program to help balance a check book. That was essentially a very basic "expert system", which used rules from logic and experience to offer suggestions as to why it did not balance.

y first PC was a Commodore 64. But shortly afterwards was an IBM model 5150.The IBM had dual floppy's and a hard card disk drive. The green screen sucked for anything other that the business stuff i used it for. But I loved the color my C64 had for games and entry into BASIC programing...

Since then, I have had all the upgrades that came about... 286, 386, 486, P4...

DOS... Windows 3.11, Windows 95, 98, 2000! XP... (skipped the Vista mishap)

Currently running a multi-core 64 bit with Win 7 and Looking into the Win 8 scene.

I was working in electronics in Berkeley, CA, in the late 1970s. I worked with at least two different companies that used microprocessors in their products. Though I was an "analog" guy, the digital world fascinated me.

By 1980 I had built one "computer" from scratch and played around with a kit called "The Elf" if I recall correctly. At work we were building S-100 systems using the 68000 CPU and a UNIX OS. They were expensive, and we were selling them to universities for scientific work. Little did I know that right around the corner from Berkeley, young engineers were hard at work on a "personal" computer.

However, I was not introduced to the PC until the "computer guy" at a place I worked fell ill, and I had to step in to figure out how to get lists to print out of his generic PC. The PC was an interesting piece of hardware. But what made it "work" was the software. Automated booting from a BIOS burned into a ROM chip brought up a single-user operating system with no passwords! If you could learn DOS you were good to go.

And the whole computer was on your desk! And YOU were the system administrator! People who were geeky enough to appreciate this used PCs. People who did not want to go there used Macs.

But the driving force in those early days of personal computing was the concept that a private person could actually own and control an entire computer. He didn't have to worry about leasing time on a mainframe that he accessed with a user name and password via a "dumb terminal" that was incapable of storing any data locally.

And what bothers me about where we are headed today is that we are back to using "dumb" terminals on huge networks where our personal data is "out there" somewhere and essentially beyond our control.

So what passes today for a society has basically rejected the PC as an item only relevant to a few geeky folks who like to write programs. Apparently, the PC, as an idea, had no other redeeming qualities. Well, maybe it didn't.

But what if the idea of the PC had been extended to the internet, instead of being subsumed by it? What if the only place where my personal data were stored was on my own personal server? What if anyone who wanted to access that data needed my personal permission to do so? Would cyber crime be the issue that it is today?

Something swept in and essentially crushed the "I can control my own technology" movement and replaced it with what we have now. And I'm not at all sure that was a good thing.