Personal Computing: Past, Present, and Future
Michael Wills
Computer Information Systems
University of Wisconsin - Platteville
willsmi@uwplatt.edu
Abstract
The world of personal computing has changed immensely just in the few decades we have been
on this planet. Just a few years ago, it was not nearly as common if a family had a computer,
especially one with the internet. Now a vast number of people walk around with smart phones in
our pockets that are as powerful, if not more than, the desktop PCs of old, not to mention
connected to millions of other devices via the internet. Personal computing is changing rapidly as
are the needs of the user. This seminar will explore the origins of personal computing, provide
insight on the current state of the industry, and look to the future.
Introduction
Personal computers play a gigantic role in all of our lives these days. Many people believe the
term ‘PC’ only applies to their laptop or desktop computer, but the definition of a personal
computer is as follows according to Miriam Webster:
A general-purpose computer equipped with a microprocessor and designed to run
especially commercial software (as a word processor or Internet browser) for an
individual user.
This definition appears to include vast numbers of devices we use every day. From phones,
tablets, laptops, and desktops to GPS devices, DVRs, and Smart TV boxes, personal computers
are everywhere in our lives whether we notice them or not.
Early on in the life of the term ‘Personal Computer’ a Time Magazine writer wrote something
that, at the time, would have seemed outlandish to consider:
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“There is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be a master of a
personal computer.” - John Mauchly 11/3/1962
This attitude would define the generations of innovation that followed and brought a
computer into nearly every household in the country and brought personal computing
technology into the hands of the masses.
History
Early Computers
In the early years of the computer era, there were gigantic computers known as mainframes.
Mainframes were leviathans that often took up the entire room for which they were situated and
came with a massive price tag to match. Due to their size and expense to operate, which was
anywhere from two to three thousand dollars a month, they were generally owned and operated
only by major corporations, universities, and government entities. Jobs were prepared on punch
cards by hand and could take quite a long time to prepare because of the massive number of
punch cards necessary for complex or longer jobs. Often times, the party who submitted the
cards could be left for hours or days waiting for the job results depending on the workload of that
particular mainframe.
After mainframes came minicomputers. In the early 60's the minicomputer began to become
more prevalent for smaller companies or research facilities due to it being far cheaper, only in
the ten to thirty thousand dollar total range, as well as smaller and more convenient.
Minicomputers were still large by todays standards, most standing about the size of a
refrigerator, but back in those days, these were revolutionarily small.
The Microprocessor
The advent of the personal computer was preceded by the invention of the microprocessor. The
microprocessor shrank down the necessary functions onto a lone integrated circuit. This smaller
chip size allowed for mass production as well as price drops. The decrease in size and price are
the reason the personal computer was allowed to become personal as those two factors had
previously inhibited consumer purchasing of computers.
The first microprocessor on a single chip to be produced was the Texas Instruments TMS 1000
in September of 1971. The chip was produced in over 40 different varieties with different ROM
and RAM amounts. Because of its absurdly low retail price of only two dollars a chip, it sold
well over one hundred million units. However, despite being completed in 1971, the chip did not
make it into the market until 1974 by which time it had been passed up by the next and far more
renowned of the early microprocessors.
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Intel released the 4004 a mere two months after the TMS 1000 was created. This was the first
commercially available microprocessor. Upon release, its initial speed was 740kHz which at the
time was very quick because of a new technology developed just for this chip, known as silicon
gate technology. This allowed for a larger number of transistors on the chip and higher speeds.
Early Personal Computers
In 1957, the first programmable single user PC controlled by a keyboard was released. The IBM
610 was one of the first available computers that someone with little to no experience could
come in and work without a manual. It did not need any special power sources to run it, nor did it
need any air conditioning units to keep it cool. The only downside to it was that it was fairly
slow. One example offered up by a user was that it would take nearly 20 seconds to calculate a
sine equation. It was still fairly expensive at around fifty five thousand dollars which was part of
the reason it only sold one hundred eighty units.[4]
The next step came in 1965. The Olivetti Programma 101 was the first commercially produced
desktop computer for the average consumer. It debuted at the World's Fair that year for only
three thousand two hundred dollars, which was much cheaper than any other computer on the
market at the time, though still very expensive for the average family or small business. It was
capable of much the same as a scientific calculator today could do and had a printer built in to
print out the results of calculations. This computer sold markedly better than the IBM 610 had
because it had a more targeted market base.[1]
Finally in 1970 the Datapoint 2200 showed a glimpse into what the PC of the future would start
to look like. It came with a monitor, keyboard, and program storage built in and was the first of
its kind to do so. This was followed shortly after, in 1973, by the Xerox Alto which was the first
computer to use the mouse as well as a GUI operating system. Xerox followed this unit up a few
years later with the Star in 1981 which brought the first use of bitmapped display, Ethernet
networking, file servers, print servers, and email clients to the world of corporate workstations.
These were rather expensive and thus less likely to be home machines, but they sold fairly well
in the corporate world.
The do it yourself computer builders got a big start in this era as well with the Altair 8800, a four
hundred dollar kit computer that anyone could build. Its low entry price and relatively easy to
follow instructions helped it sell phenomenally quickly. It sold ten thousand kits before Altair
realized it could not keep up with demand and sold the design off. The Altair spawned one of the
giants of the industry today, Microsoft, which was founded to make a BASIC interpreter for the
computer.[7]
The last major design of this era was the Sol-20. This was the only major production of the
Silicon Valley based group Homebrew Computer Club. The major gripe the group had with the
computer industry is that in order to get growth, someone would have to make a computer that
was all in one with no assembly required. They did this with the Sol-20. It included a monitor
and cassette tape interface as well as the computer and keyboard built into one box. It was
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relatively cheap at just over two thousand dollars and did not sell as well as hoped. The idea,
however, would prove to be contagious.
The "Trinity"
In 1977, three computers took the market by storm. These PCs really brought the market for
personal computing to the average home with their affordable pricing and all in one builds, the
idea for which was the Sol-20 mentioned above. The trinity name was bestowed upon them by
Byte magazine for their success.
The first of the bunch, the Commodore PET was the least successful of the three. This PC
followed the model of the Sol-20 and had the entire device built into one machine. It had a
cassette storage interface, 96kB of memory, and a 1mHz processor. Frequent complaints about
the "chiclet" keyboard caused the company to release a new version two years later which had a
better keyboard but had to remove the integrated cassette reader to make room for it. The PET
was produced for five years and sold just under a million units at four hundred ninety five dollars
a unit. [3]
The second, and the bestselling of the group, was one of the first ventures of Apple computers
and one of its founders Steve Wozniak. The Apple II line of computers was similar in styling to
the PET but without the integrated cassette storage system, instead opting for diskette drives and
cassette storage drives to be attached peripherals. Despite its sales numbers, this PC wasnt any
more popular than the other two. It sold four million units at five hundred dollars each, but it sold
those units over a much longer time span. Production on the Apple II line of PCs did not stop
until 1993, a full 8 years after the last of the other two faded out.
The last of the "trinity" was the Tandy TRS-80. At the time of release, Tandy Corp was owned
by RadioShack, thus giving the TRS-80 a marketing advantage since there could be one in the
window of every one of the biggest electronics retailers in the country. It did well, selling around
1.5 million units at four hundred ninety nine dollars in the four years it was produced. This PC,
however, had issues getting FCC clearance as it had several exterior cables and cheap plastics
that caused it to fail the FCC interference standard. By the time this became an issue in 1981,
Tandy decided that instead of fixing it, they would just discontinue the model since its successors
had already come to market and were selling well.[10]
What Came Next
After the "trinity" the industry really began to blossom with more variety and affordability. The
same year the Commodore PET was discontinued, their next offering came out. The Commodore
64 was the most successful single model of all time selling seventeen million units, more than
twice the sales figures for all three trinity computers combined. It was named for its 64 kB of
RAM. It was an all in one unit whose success stemmed from a few factors. One being that it was
sold in regular retail facilities rather than electronics stores so more people were apt to see them.
It also spawned over ten thousand software titles which made it one of the most developed
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operating systems at the time. These and its low six hundred dollar price tag made it very
appealing for both business and consumer use.
The C64's direct competition was the IBM PC. The IBM PC had a processor that was roughly
five times faster than the C64 and had the same RAM. On paper, it should have been a much
better machine. In reality though, its high price tag of three thousand dollars and a rare mistake
by IBM cost them in the market with this computer. In IBM's rush to get the PC out to compete
with the C64 and the Apple II, they skipped out on several patents which led to other companies
reverse engineering their work and producing cheaper clones to undercut IBM’s market share.
The IBM PC will be known best for providing the standard architecture of the personal PC for
the coming years. Because of this, it won Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1982, becoming
the first inanimate object to do so.
The IBM PC also spawned a new generation of operating systems. IBM hired Microsoft to
provide its MSDOS operating system which they re-branded PCDOS. Microsoft sold several
variations and upgrades to the operating system under their moniker of MSDOS. This was a
major kick start for Microsoft which has since evolved into the giant we know today.
In 1984 Apple released their response to the success of the IBM PC and the C64 with their new
Macintosh. It was $500 cheaper than the IBM and contained hardware that was twice as
powerful. It was also one of the most successful mouse driven PC models to date. It was
announced during the Super Bowl that year, but really became successful for its association with
Adobe's Desktop Publishing suite. One of Apple's goals for this PC was to bring high end
graphics to the middle class; this is a mindset that Apple products are still well known for
today.[5]
Part of the personalization of the computer came in the form of the operating system that the user
would use. In the nineties, Microsoft developed several operating systems: Microsoft Windows
3.0, 3.1, 95, 98 and 2000. Each one making things easier and easier for the user to do more and
more and making the PC much more accessible for anyone.
During this time Apple was floundering near bankruptcy due to a lack of innovation within their
MacOS. They were able to avoid it when Steve Jobs, the other founder, returned to the company
in 1997. With him came the new MacOS 8, which was a major revision on previous versions of
the operating system. Shortly after, the release of the iconic iMac all in one PC brought the
company back into profitability and direct competition with Windows PCs for the market. They
released a workstation model of PC as well, known as PowerMac, which looked more like the
conventional desktop PC we know today.[6]
Current PCs
The current state of the personal computer world would astonish the users of the early PCs. We
have come a long way from those 1 MHz processors and 64kB of RAM. It is not uncommon
today for a computer to have four or more multi GHz processors and multiple gigabytes of
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RAM. The days of computing in our lives being a luxury are mostly over as personal computers
are everywhere doing things we never dreamed of ten years ago.
Hardware has advanced a steady pace ever since the invention of the microprocessor in 1971.
This march of progress can only be stopped when we are capable of making transistors which are
on the atomic level for size. This is a commonly spoken of rule known as Moore’s Law which
also states the number of transistors will double roughly every 18-24 months. The graph below
proves that it has been a fairly accurate prediction thus far.
Fig. 1 Graph showing transistor count on Intel CPUs
Currently the fastest clock speed processor on the consumer market is a four core chip running at
4.2 GHz which is more than five hundred times faster than the Apple II mentioned earlier, per
core. It may seem as though the average clock speed has not increased much in the last ten or so
years, but that is largely due to a change in the way we go about getting more speed. Rather than
increasing the clock speed, which is likely to produce more heat, we are developing technology
to create more cores which each have a relatively good clock speed on one chip. Eight core
processors recently became available and have about double the processing power of the high
speed quad core.
RAM is dramatically different than it used to be. The Commodore 64 was top of the line at
release with its 64Kb of DRAM, the predecessor of modern day DDR3 RAM. These days
operating systems that will run off 64kb of RAM are virtually nonexistent except in collections
and museums. Storage has made a switch from cassettes to disks and now the trend appears to be
flash NAND memory which is exceptionally quick, quiet, and generates little to no heat.
Input has not changed much over the years because there is little to improve upon for the average
user and deviating from the standard makes a computer less accessible to everyone. One input
method that has evolved of late is the touch screen. Touch screens have been around for decades
but only recently have they began their meteoric rise to prominence. Touch screens allow the
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user to abandon physical keyboards and mice in favor of gestures and on screen keyboards,
which makes them ideal for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Another form of
input being developed currently is neural impulse control, which is controlling your input, be it
keyboard or mouse commands, with only your thoughts and facial expressions.
Output, on the other hand has advanced a great deal, but conceptually remains the same dating
back to the times of the first GUIs. Where we once had twelve inch monochrome displays we
now have vibrant, full high definition LEDs and LCDs. The rise of LED and LCD screens has
allowed the user to have more desk space in the case of desktops as well as putting thinner,
lighter screens on everything else. Recent innovations have allowed for flexible LED screens that
are nearly paper thin which could someday allow you to roll up a full size computer and take it
with you wherever you want.
One of the most apparent things about current PCs is the variety. There are phones, MP3 players,
tablets, laptops, desktops, and smart TV boxes and within each of those categories huge variety.
The increase in transistors in a small space has enabled these devices to continue to get smaller
and smaller and cheaper and cheaper which has allowed us the freedom to specialize devices that
all still do an important task. One example would be a Smart TV box; these boxes are personal
computers and are designed with a purpose in mind, to serve up your shows/movies on your TV.
E-readers, personal computers that are designed to put your library in your hands wherever you
are. MP3 players are PCs for bringing your music with you. The possibilities really are
incredible.
Future PCs
Many analysts are predicting the downfall of the PC, without really understanding the term that
they are mourning. PCs are far from dying they are thriving. The box is changing, as is the
purpose, to accommodate our increasingly networked and mobile style of life. Last year, Desktop
and Laptop sales in the US declined for the first time since 2001. This was a result of two things,
the first being the recession, the second being the move towards more mobile and specialty
devices. In recent years, the move was from Desktop to Laptop PCs which allowed some of the
same computing power but in a smaller, lighter, and portable package. Now the populous are
flocking towards mobile devices as the answer to their needs. The rise of the tablet started a few
years ago with the introduction of the iPad and has been growing ever since. It has riding the
wave of success that the smart phone has been on for several years now.[2]
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Fig. 2 Graph detailing sales of 3 different types of PC[9]
As the graph above demonstrates smart phone sales have had a boom unlike we have seen in the
technology era. The tablet is hot on its heels though. Once the iPad started getting serious
competition, the industry began taking off. Competition is driving the innovation we are seeing
with tablet hardware, as well as the lower prices that we have had in recent years. Android vs.
iOS is a driving force in the mobile world, where Windows vs. OS X has been for years in the
computer world.
Fig. 3 Graph showing types of PC sales in market share[8]
The graph above demonstrates the predicted change in market share for the types of devices we
use every day. The graph shows that desktops as well as PCs will gradually start to fade down to
smaller and smaller percentage. Some people would have you believe that they will both
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eventually just go away. This is highly unlikely as both provide advantages that the other types
of PCs cannot match such as power and input control. These types of PCs may shrink in sales,
but they will be mainstays in the PC landscape for a long time.[11]
References
[1] Bernard, Alesandro. "Putting People First » Documentary Highlights How Programma 101 Put
People First." Putting People First » Documentary Highlights How Programma 101 Put People
First. N.p., 15 Feb. 211. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[2] "BII REPORT: How Annual Tablet Sales Will Explode To 450 Million By 2016." Business Insider.
N.p., 2 Nov. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[3] "Commodore.ca | Oldest Known Commodore PET Brochure." Commodore.ca | Oldest Known
Commodore PET Brochure. Commodore, 2002. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[4] DaCruz, Frank. "IBM 610 - The First Personal Computer." IBM 610 - The First Personal Computer.
Columbia University, 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[5] Dernbach, Christopher. "The History of the Apple Macintosh." Mac History. N.p., 24 Jan. 2011. Web.
12 Mar. 2013.
[6] Reilly, Edwin D., Anthony Ralston, and David Hemmendinger. Encyclopedia of Computer Science.
London: Nature Pub. Group, 2000. Print.
[7] Reimer, Jeremy. "From Altair to IPad: 35 Years of Personal Computer Market Share." Ars Technica.
N.p., 14 Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[8] Reiner, Jeremy. "Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures." Ars Technica.
N.p., 14 Dec. 2005. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[9] Schonfield, Erick. "Forrester Projects Tablets Will Outsell Netbooks By 2012, Desktops By 2013."
TechCrunch RSS. N.p., 17 June 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
[10] Veit, Stanley. Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer. Asheville, NC: WorldComm, 1993.
Print.
[11] Zielenziger, David. "After Tepid 2012, PC Sales May Rise Only 3.2% This Year: IDC."
International Business Times. N.p., 16 Jan. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.