The PC Turns 25
Twenty-five years ago, IBM launched the first personal computer. Corporate America noticed and started to use it, but it took companies like Radio Shack and Apple to begin bringing PCs to the masses by selling low-powered versions to hobbyists. Fox example, Radio Shack’s early entry cost around $800; you had to learn Basic programming language to use it, and you had to store your data on a cassette tape.
A few years later, in 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh with innovations such as a mouse, a graphic user interface, a screen that looked like a piece of paper (white with black type), and the option of many different types of fonts. It was marketed as the PC for the rest of us, and it helped open the door of using a PC to many who might have otherwise never given it a try.
With all that said, the first Mac, like its PC counterparts, only had a floppy drive; users would have to wait for the hard disk drive.
Speaking of disk drives, there is another technology birthday to celebrate – the disk drive – which just turned 50. Yes, 50!
So why did it take so long to get into the PC? To answer that, you have to look at the dimensions of the first disk drive. It was called the RAMAC, and was designed by IBM. It could only store five megabytes of data, buy to do that it needed 50 spinning iron-oxide-coated disks that were the size of a 24-inch pizza. Its total size was that of two modern refrigerators and it required a separate air compressor to protect the two moving heads that were used to read and write the data, and it weighed a ton! If you wanted to lease one, it would cost you $250,000 in today’s dollars. And with all that size and cost, it would only hold the equivalent of two short MP3 songs.
At the time, the real innovation it represented was its ability to access data randomly. Before that, you had to wind a tape from one end to the other looking for data you needed.
TODAY AND TOMORROW’S PC
Ten years ago, many felt that the PC era was coming to a close, as people would instead use a device that had no storage capabilities, or on-board software. Instead they would access software and store data remotely. This is happening, but the PC is in no way dead. Today, the PC is alive and well and only just beginning to change our lives. The very definition of a PC continues to morph, as our cameras, phones, and MP3 players, to name just a few, become connected versions of a PC with increasingly more power.
Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of six books
Copyright 2007 Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.
