Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the main reasons for many of its problems is the compatibility with previous systems
both in terms of hardware compatibility and software compatibility (and dodgy software, of
course). The big change on the PC was the introduction of proper 32-bit software, Windows
95/NT.
In the future systems will be configured by the operating system, and not by the user.
How many people understand what an IRQ is, what I/O addresses are, and so on. Maybe if
the PC faced some proper competition it would become easy to use and become totally reli-
able. Then when they were switched on they would configure themselves automatically, and
you could connect any device you wanted and it would understand how to configure (we're
nearly there, but it's still not perfect). Then we would have a tool which could be used to
improve creativity and you didn't need a degree in computer engineering to use one (in your
dreams!). But, anyway, it's keeping a lot of technical people in a job, so, don't tell anyone
our little secret. The Apple Macintosh was a classic example of a well-designed computer
that was designed as a single unit. When initially released it started up with messages like
I'm glad to be out of that bag
and
Hello, I am Macintosh. Never trust a computer you
cannot lift
.
So, apart from the IBM PC, what are the all-time best computers? A list by
Byte
in Sep-
tember 1995 stated the following:
1.
MITS Altair8800
11.
IBM AT
2.
Apple II
12.
Commodore Amiga 1000
3.
Commodore PET
13.
Compaq Deskpro 386
4.
Radio Shack TRS-80
14.
Apple Macintosh II
5.
Osborne 1 Portable
15.
Next Nextstation
6.
Xerox Star
16.
NEC UltraLite
7.
IBM PC
17.
Sun SparcStation 1
8.
Compaq Portable
18.
IBM RS/6000
9.
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
19.
Apple Power Macintosh
Apple Macintosh
IBM ThinkPad 701C
10.
20.
And the Top 10 computer people as:
1. Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc)
2. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
3. Steve Jobs (Apple)
4. Robert Noyce (Intel)
5. Dennis Ritchie (C Programming)
6. Marc Andreessen (Netscape Communications)
7. Bill Atkinson (Apple Mac GUI)
8. Tim Berners-Lee (CERN)
9. Doug Engelbart (Mouse/Windows/etc)
10. Grace Murray Hopper (COBOL)
11. Philippe Kahn (Turbo Pascal)
12. Mitch Kapor (Lotus 123)
13. Donald Knuth (TEX)
14. Thomas Kurtz
15. Drew Major (NetWare)
16. Robert Metcalfe (Ethernet)
17. Bjarne Strousstrup (C++)
18. John Warnock (Adobe)
19. Niklaus Wirth (Pascal)
20 Steve Wozniak (Apple)
One of the classic comments of all time was by Ken Olson at DEC, who stated, that there is no reason
anyone would want a computer in their home. This seems farcical now, but at the time, in the 1970s,
there were no CD-ROMs, no microwave ovens, no automated cash dispensers, and no Internet. Few
people predicted them, so, predicting the PC was also difficult. But the two best comments were:
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
Popular Mechanics
.
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
