This chapter is devoted to a potted history of computing. Inevitably, it is dominated by machines. Because this book is aimed principally at the small user and those with a desire to know minis and mainframes are introduced but the bulk is devoted to personal and microcomputers. The real action in this area started when Clive Sinclair entered the fray and a whole host of machines followed as interest grew. Since readers are unlikely to want to wade through masses of what may now seem irrelevant data most machines are only given a brief mention, although more detail is given to those considered ground-breaking or to have significantly influenced the market. Don't be put off by any jargon: it should all become clear the more of this book you read. Unfortunately machine statistics and disk sizes are numercial. There have been an aweful lot of microprocessors, too, each one being given a number to differentiate it from its rivals and predecessors. These are mentioned for completeness, although they will be meaningless to most people. The 'average' reader has no need to worry.
America's Byte magazine started in 1975 and in 1978 it was time for Britain's own version. At the start of 1978 The Times newspaper started a two page section on personal computing and announced that on 8th February the first British computer magazine was to be launched for an annual subscription of ?6. Three thousand people decided to take up the offer.
In 1977 the first British computer, the Nascom, was launched. British computer enthusiasts wanted something cheaper than the expensive American machines around at the time. Names such as Altair, Cromemco and SWTPC were part of the mainstream. The Apple II at ?1000 for a basic machine was rare. Fortunately, Lynx (a subsidiary of US NASCO brought out a kit called the Nascom 1 which was s single board computer and had to be soldered together yourself. Instead of a monitor you had to use your TV set and to store your programs you had to plug in your own cassette recorder. The operating system (or 'monitor' program) was held on an 8k EPROM (EPROM - special type of chip; see the Glossary for details) and there was 16k RAM to write your programs in, typed on a full QWERTY keyboard. It was an 8-bit machine with a Mostek Z80 microprocessor. Total cost including power supply was ?250.
This price compared quite favourably with existing machines. Commodore were marketing the PET range, for instance. The PET 2001 was a ready built machine derived from the KIM 1 popular in the US. It had a futuristic angular styling in a cream steel case with a 64 key keyboard attached to the front. A tiny 9 inch monochrome monitor was fixed on top. The display was sharp and clear. Alongside was fixed a cassette deck. The 14k ROM contained Commodore's own version of BASIC taking up 8k. 8k RAM was provided which was expandable to 32k. The processor was the 6502 (to be later used on a variety of other microcomputers). Total cost: ?1000.
The arrival of the Nascom changed the computer industry and opened the door for later developments such the Sinclair Z80, although at this stage the lower end was still the enthusiast's market. However, the computer was no longer for the rich but for everyone and you no longer needed a degree in computer science or deep pockets to get into the game. The Apple tended to be sold as a business machine, although a good product. When Tandy's TRS80 arrived in April 1978 at ?499 (without cassette deck or monitor), being cheaper than the PET was at first though to be a toy but soon started making inroads into the market which was splitting into three groups:business, education and hobbyist.
Meanwhile Apple brought out the Apple II with a 6502 chip, 16k RAM, two paddles (sort of joysticks), 116k floppy disks and colour graphics with 6 colours on a Sony monitor with a resolution of 280x192 at a cost of ?1250. The Z80 market had to make do with Research Machines 380Z. This was based on a variant of the Z80 itself the Z80A and came in a variety of combinations. The circuit boards were double sided (the Nascom's was single sided and therefore suitable in those days for the hobbyist, although double sided boards are now available for hobbyists) and much admired with their German engineering quality. Although slow to operate it was fairly popular in schools. Its monitor was monochrome. Coincidentally, a small manufacturer called Intel brought out a 16-bit processor it called the 8086 which was later to dominate machines and the company to rise to prominence. They followed this in 1979 with a stripped down version called the 8088 which was later to form the basis of the IBM PC of which rumours first started appearing at the end of 1979. It was one of the first 16-bit microprocessors being faster than its 8-bit predecessors such as the Z80 and 6502 and gave access to more memory. The difference between the 8088 and the 8086 was that although they both operated internally using 16 bits the 8088 connected to external chips using 8 bit communication. These connections were considered too complicated for it to be incorpoated into the PC at first.
Software, particularly home software, up to now had been rather poor and scarce users relying on a few tried and tested packages. For business, who went for complete packaged machines, there was more choice. In 1979 Julian Allason started the first major UK publishing operation, PetSoft, which was bought up by ACT, founders of Apricot. This, together with the first major mail order company MicroDigital laid foundations for todays thriving industry.
The Attache was a revamped Altair, considered as the first personal computer. Its processor was the 8080A and it came with 1k RAM. A working system cost £6300.
The Compucolor II used the same processor but its RAM was expandable to 32k. Next, coming in a walnut veneer box weighing in at 65lbs, was the Micromation Z-Plus. It was designed to sit in a custom built desk, used the Z80A processor and had 64kRAM. It was compatibile with Digital Research's CP/M operating system and the basic system cost ?3750. An optional 20Mb hard disk drive cost ?3700 extra. Machinesthat were shortlived. However, Sharp entered the fray with a competitor for the Pet whose sales were steadily increasing and was becoming very popular:the MZ80k with 6k memory it cost ?520. Its keyboard was strange in that instead of the keys being in neat lines they were staggered. It looked like a PET of which some remarked thatit looked like a cash register. The MZ80K also had a Z80 microprocessor and a cassette drive. A version with dual floppy drives was on offer for a mere ?800. Sharp also came up with a pocket computer (the PC-1211) with QWERTY keyboard and BASIC.
The Apple was steadily gaining ground as well. After the Apple II came the Apple III - one of the first machines to have a hard disk. But it became a liability and nearly ruined the company the main reasons being a very high price, software compatability and the fact that 'it didn't work properly'.
During the 1980s prices tumbled led in part at least by the involvement of the High Street stores and more especially the multiples. Consider that a daisywheel printer cost ?2000 or so at the beginning of the decade but by the end had fallen to around ?300. The first computer to break the psychological ?100 barrier was the Sinclair ZX80 designed by Sir Clive Sinclair. Introduced in early 1980 it had a membrane keyboard and was based on the Z80 with 1k RAM and 4kROM including BASIC. ?79.95 boughtyou a complete kit to put together at home. It connected to a TV and your own cassette recorder. Inside it had 21 chips. Its successor was the ZX81 launched a year later and was sold by Timex. A kit for this cost ?49.95 plus ?8.95 for the power supply (a plug in transformer). The ready built machine was ?69.95. Being able to buy a computer for less than ?100 was really special in those days. Owners of the ZX80 could upgrade their ROM, allowing them to use the electrostatic printer introduced in 1982 (basically athermal printer it used special paper coated in aluminium which two conductive styli evaporated to form the letters - exposing the pages to daylight gave a similar effect!). There were just four chips. Some of the keys on the keyboard had as many as five functions.
Floating point functions had been introduced to accompany the integers. 1k RAM seemed small but as a plug in accessory a 16k RAM pack was available. However, in 1982 it was followed by the ZX Spectrum (not the ZX82) another cassette based machine, although tape based Microdrives were promised imminently (also seen on the QL; see chapter on disk drives for description). Whereas its predecessors were black and white this was colour with a rubber keyboard. Initially available by mail order only it came with either 16k (upgradeable) or 48k memory for about ?125. In its various versions it was still being sold in the late 1980s with most software sold being games.
The Sinclair QL at ?399 came out in 1984 in a futuristic black case conatining a 68000 processor, 128k RAM and two microdrives (capacity up to 125k on a 200inch continuous tape loop). It was a glorious mistake launched with much fanfare. It was not compatible with the Spectrum but did feature windows and multi-tasking.
A far more substantial machine than the ZX80 was the Atom launched at ?150 by a small company called Acorn. This was the predecessor of the groundbreaking BBC Micro. It used its own version of BASIC and some of its features were similar to those of the ZX Spectrum. The BBC Micro initially came in two models: the A and the B, the A with 16k RAM the B 32k. It was developed in conjunction with a BBC TV programme Making The Most Of The Micro leading to contoversy over the BBC's involvement with something as commercial as making computers, but helped make Britain one of the most computer literate countries in the world. This was also helped by the fact that the government launched a scheme whereby it paid half the cost of computers bought - providing the machine was a BBC, Research Machines 380Z or ZX Spectrum. At one time there were more computers per person in the UK than anywhere else. Acorn won the BBC contract over rivals Sinclair (who launched his Spectrum anyway) and Newbrain. Although launched in December 1981, the BBC micro was not available until Summer 1982 because of production difficulties. This did not affect its success.
Graphics modes for those days were staggering: 8 modes (including a teletext mode) with resolution of 40 x 25 in eight colours to 840x256 in two colours. It used the 6502, managed a very impressive turn of speed and knocked the socks off the recently launched IBM PC. It was avery versatile machine and found its wasy into all sorts of situations. Acorn planned to add second processors and a teletext adaptor which actually came much later than forecast.
Most people found it too expensive, so a cut down version called the Electron was brought out in 1983 retaining the award winning BBC BASIC but no teletext mode (mode 7) and some of the ports were missing. It was not as successful as the BBC punters preferring its main rivals but in terms of games became a strong competitor for the Commodore 64.
Relying heavily on sales of the BBC Acorn failed to put much money into research and development and soon ran into financial difficulties - especially when its main rivals started to bring out new products. In fact, Commodore, Atari and Acorn were, to a certain extent, victims of their own success. Acorn at last woke up to its critics and brought out the B+ which was an enhanced version of the BBC B - basically featuring more memory. However, this was not enough and the BBC Master appeared with 128k memory, improved BASIC and improved graphics. It was very much an updated BBC and included a wordprocessor built into ROM with an improved operating system. The machine was greeted with enthusiasm but was not enough to really save the company. This was because in the meantime its backroom boys had been putting their all into new technology and had come up with a RISC chip (discussed in a later chapter) which was to be developed into a fully fledged system. Acorn desparately needed finance and were fortunate enough to be taken over by the Italian firm Olivetti.
The new machine appeared in August 1987 and was called the Archimedes. It was the fastest microcomputer around - and the most powerful. It was based around the ARM RISC processor that Acorn had spent a lot of money developing (and which had therfore brought them into financial trouble). Unfortunately there was little software for some time and the machine was not marketed very well until about 1993.
The A3000 was the top end of the range but lacked monitor and hard disk. The 32-bit ARM processor led to the RiscOS (a graphical desktop) shielding the user from the Arthur operating system.
Jay Miner, who designed Commodore's Amiga used to work for Atari and in 1980 came up with the Atari 400 and the Atari 800 using the 6502 processor (highly popular in those days). It had a sound chip called Pokey which delivered arcade quality sound (remember sound was usuallyrather primitive in those days and even today some computers manufactured still only are able to give an uncompromising beep). It was faster than its main rival the Commodore 64 and had 256 colours (usually computers had 16, though newer machines have far more). Principally a games machine probably the best known were Star Raiders and Drop Zone. It was amoungst the first machines to have true hardware sprites (missile graphics). However, despite a good technical specification, the keyboard was as good as its rivals and software wasmainly sold as expensive cartridges leading to a poor market performance.
A twin disk machine called the SuperBrain was also launched in 1980 which also had a full screen, was based around the CP/M operating system and was offered as an all-in-one computer for under ?2000.
1981 saw the Osborne 1 designed by Adam Osborne, a member of MENSA (as was Clive Sinclair). This was a standard business machine with a 12.5cm screen and was small enough to fit under an aeroplane seat. Bundled with a wordprocessor and spreadsheet it changed perceptions of the value of software.
Another machine which introduced people to computing was Commodore's VIC20 offering a colour display through a domestic television. It was quite a departure from the PET having four function keys (giving programmers a chance to automate some tasks) but no numeric keypad. Most sound and graphics required an in-depth knowledge of POKE commands which gave access to the VIC chip (a customised chip giving a display of 184x176 pixels). The standard machine's memory was 5k, although only 3.5k was accessible to the user. Again a 6502 machine, cost:?190. A RAM pack was available. A special tape recorder was required costing ?40 (compatible with the PET). Initially software was via plug in cartridges which became hot as the socket was right next to the heatsink (a special device - usually metal - which draws away heat and usually becomes very hot itself) but later cassettes became the norm. Millions of VIC20s were sold.
Its successor was the Commodore 64 in 1983 - another highly succesful machine. Sound was via a SID chip (Sound Interface Device) comparable to small synthesisers at the time. Suddenly people realised through games like Monty On The Run programmed by Rob Hubbard that computers could be used to make decent music. Like the Atari machines the Commodore 64 had sprites. It ran an enhanced version of the VIC 20's BASIC involving a lot of POKEs still - even to change the screen colours. A disk drive was brought out but even that was slow. It achieved a 30% market share and was probably the biggest selling home computer in the world. A 128k version, however, never really caught on.
The 128 used a hybrid dual processor unit. The 6502 was replaced with a 6510 as well as a Zilog Z80A enabling CP/M to be provided. It had all the custom chippery of the 64 and new devices that produced higher resolution (better) graphics. It could act as a 64 or could be put into enhanced 128 mode where a much improved BASIC was available. A new improved disk drive was brought out to go with it but this was still slow. Consumers were still devoted to the older 64 which contributed to its demise. Commodore's answer was the Amiga (see below).
The Colour Computer which became known as the CoCo was launched in 1981 by a major force in microcomputing:Tandy. Basically a TRS-80 it had a Motorola 6809 processor instead of a Z80 making the two machines incompatible. However, it was compatible with the British Dragon but less succesful because of its high price.
Dragon Data, a subsidiary of Mettoy Toys, was a Welsh home computer engineering company and hit an all-time high by releasing the Dragon 32 in August 1982. Sales suffered to a certain extent from the stigma of the toy company (people thinking it was just a toy) but it had a proper keyboard (in otherwords better than the Spectrum) and a 6809 processor. A shortage of software was another problem. A 64k version appeared letter. Some were even used as second processors for BBC machines.
The IBM PC was actually launched in September 1981. For $1265 you could have a 16k system. A monochrome display was $345, a dot matrix printer $755 - except that you then needed a $55 cable to connect the printer to the computer. The total system including memory, disk drives and graphics adaptors was about ?2500. It was actually designed as a cassette based machine (hence the add-on drives). The two 160k disk drives were optional. It used a 8088 processor and it was possible to use it on a domestic TV set. The keyboard had no cursor keys as today's models do and unusually a scroll lock (for stopping text rolling off the screen) and a print screen button. Its BASIC was a version of Microsoft's BASIC-80, which allowed you to play music through the speaker and plot in medium or high resolution graphics. DOS replaced CP/M.
Prices were going up in 1984 instead of down. The IBM XT with 10Mb hard disk, 128k RAM and colour monitor was advertised for ?3895. This was followed by the AT signalling the direction of personal computing. It came with the 80286 chip and 1.2MB (5?") floppy, 512kRAM and 20Mb hard disk. It also had an 80287 co-processor and cost ?4300. Deliveries, however, were non-existant for about a year leaving competitors to clean up.
"Minor" machines from 1982 were the M20 from Olivetti which was a 16bit machine, the Epson HX-20 all-in-one portable (featuring till receipt printer) and the DEC Rainbow. The first serious competitor to the PC was designed by Chuck Peddle who had designed the 6502 microprocessor and built the PET around it. It was called the ACT Sirius 1, was a 16bit machine and created for the end user rather than the programmer with 128k RAM, a VDU, two floppy disk drives and Microsoft BASIC 86 for ?2395.
The Apple Lisa in 1983 failed to make it but laid the ground for the Macintosh and the graphical user interface. A plethora of machines from unheard of manufacturers included the Lynx and the Oric Atmos which didn't hang around for long. This was a time when everyone tried to cash in on a boom market led on the home front by Sinclair, Acorn and Commodore. Texas Instruments brought out the 9000 and Torch, a Cambridge based company, brought out their computer. The Apricot from ACT (who distributed Commodore and Sirius machines) had an 8086 processor and 256k RAM with a slot for an optional co-processor. This was later seen as an early IBM clone. Then there was the Jupiter ACE and Mattel's Aquarius and the Newbrain from Osbourne who promptly went bust.
Previously ridiculed for its hi-fi products Amstrad announced a competitor to the Spectrum and Commodore 64 in 1984 called the CPC464. Based on the Z80 it had 64k RAM, a built in cassette deck, an external power supply and had a choice of green screen or colour monitor - an important selling point. Priced between its two competitors at about ?300 it was faster and had more colours. Following came the 664 hot on its heels and then the 6128 in 1985 with a built in 3inch disk driveinstead of a cassette deck (although you could plug in your own). 128k of RAM was provided and a version of BASIC influenced by BBC BASIC. Compatability with CP/M gave access to many business programs.
Toshiba sold a Z80 based desk-top as well as an MSX machine to rival the SpectraVideo. MSX was supposed to be a software standard - you bought the product and it would play on any machine labelled MSX. Xerox brought out the 16/8 with both a Z80 and a 8086 processor - and a mouse. And then there was the pocket calculator sized Psion Organiser (a sort of data store which you could connect to a 'normal' computer and transfer data). Packs were available with extra software and RAM.
A revolutionary machine appeared in 1985 with outstanding video and audio hardware called the Amiga 1000. Marketed by Commodore it was designed by three men from California. If one believes the stories adog was involved as well. It was based on Motorola's 68000 microprocesssor and three custom chips controlling sound and graphics independently of the main CPU making it the ideal machine forcomplicated work such as animation, video manipulation and entertainment (although Acorn's Archimedes could be seen as an improvement). The graphics chip (called the Agnus) was designed by Jay Miner. The basic unit had 256k, 4096 colours and 8-bit four channel stereo sound. Most units, though, were sold with 512k RAM. The operating system featured a colour windows interface (two years before the Mac II) and it could multitask (run several applications at once).
One month earlier Atari had come up with their revolutionary machine which had been designed to give Apple some serious competition. The 520ST was the first of a new generation of mainstream 16-bit computers. It too was based on the 68000, had 512 colours, MIDI connectors and a Yamaha three voice tone generator. The operating system was custom made and known (perhaps unfortunately) as TOS. On top of this it came with a version of Digital Research's then new Graphical Environment Manager (GEM). If you wanted to use any software you had to buy a separate external 3.5" disk drive but the machine quickly became a big seller. As with the Amiga it was launched as a business machine but its success really happened when given access to the games market for home users and when the MIDI facilities were pushed.
The 520ST was upgraded after about a year to the 1040ST which came with 1MB RAM and a 720k disk drive. TOS and GEM were both installed in ROM. The colour version cost ?999.
At the same time a box was announced that gave IBM compatability to the ST range. It was actually an 8088 that used the ST as a terminal.
GEM, it should be mentioned, was a GUI (graphical user interface) and replaced the command line interpreter (the A or > prompt, depending on what your machine uses, where you type in a command - say to examine the contents of a disk - and the machine then interprets that and performs the operation) to employ moveable windows and icons for file management, a trashcan and support for a mouse. Whereas you type in a command with the command line interpreter, with a GUI you just move a pointer on the screen to a graphics symbol or icon and click a button.
Hard disks on cards - known (would you believe it) as hard disk cards - first appeared in 1986. Some were clearly custom-designed products but most looked like shortened disk controller cards welded to a chassis and naturally therefore performed rather badly.
Then in 1987 Atari announced a blitter chip to be incorporated into its latest models, the first being the 520STFM costing ?399. Despite several glaring incompatabilities ?150 would buy you a Mac emulator which transformed the ST into a Mac.
Having sold out to Amstrad Sinclair launched a new company, Cambridge Computing, with a new machine: the Z88. A portable A4 sized machine costing ?200 it weighed 2lb had 32k memory, BBC Basic and an integrated spreadsheet, text editor, diary and calculator. Described as a lapheld, the Z88 can be said to be the basis for all the electronic organisers that later appeared, despite being billed more as a fully fledged notebook.
Resembling a Mac Plus outside the Apple Macintosh SE was a complete redesign inside with a 15% increase in speed. The Macintosh II, however, was more important being the first Mac with colour graphics but with a 40Mb hard disk would set you back ?5500 - although it had an external monitor and an open 32bit architecture.
Commodore made their Amiga PC compatible with their A-2000, although a bridgecard was needed. Three custom chips (Agnes, Paula and Denise) made it an impressive machine. Meanwhile, IBM had been feeling the pinch and hit back to try and regain control of the marketplace with OS/2 graphical interface and its PS/2 range of machines. Top of the range was its well know budget machine (sic) the Model 80 at ?7056 having a 20MHz 386 processor 2Mb RAM and a 115Mb hard disk. It later transpired that the machine at the bottom of the range was unable to run OS/2.
Games machines re-emerged with the Sega Master System, the ill-fated Atari 65XE and the Nintendo Entertainment system.
Desktop publishing took a leap forward with the launch of the Atari Mega ST and the Atari Laser printer designed to poach the Mac market. Still based around the 68000 it boasted expanded memory of up to 4Mb and compared well price-wise to similar PCs. Quark XPress was launched for the Macintosh, successful enough to take over its archrival Pagemaker and dominate the market. In conjunction with this the mouse was fast becoming a standard part of any package and most machines were sold with one. Indeed, a large number of text programs such as wordprocessors and databases were upgraded so that they could be used with a mouse.
December 1988 saw the arrival of the NeXT, a stylish black cube designed by Steve Jobs from Apple. Incorporating a 68030 processor running at 25MHz it had a digital signal processor (DSP) originally added to provide digital sound recording and production facilities (now provided by various software packages on most machines), but designers found it could be used to analyse other types of digital information. The machine also had a 68882 maths co-processor and was the first to boast Adobe's Display Postscript as standard (though limited to monochrome), had a 2.88Mb disk drive, 32bit NuBus slots and included software such as the complete works of William Shakespeare and Webster's Colegiate Dictionary Of Quotations.
Compaq produced the first system based around Intel's 386SX processor - cheaper than the 386 beacuse it had a cut-down 16-bit data bus.It was considered a good system by most priced at £3540 complete with 4Mb RAM and a 40Mb hard disk it also featured VGA. But by the end of 1988 the clones were catching up giving both IBM and Compaq some serious competition. Amstrad was one of these rivals releasing the Amstrad2000 series aimed at the corporate market, offering a high specification for a bargain price. They were equipped with a mouse, a volume control for the built in speaker, 5¼" disk drive and a 3½" disk drive plus a version of the Paradise VGA chipset.
The mail order business saw American style service in the form of Dell Computers with their own clones of PCs and their own range of peripherals. The company was to build its reputation over the next few years to become one of the leading PC sellers.
1989 was the year of the portable. The Atari Portfolio made its debut in August and sat in the hand which was why it was called a palmtop. It sold for ?279 and had DOS2.11, a spreadsheet, address book, diary,calculator and file transfer utilities. It never gained popular acceptance, part of the problem being the expansion modules needed practically doubling the size of the unit. Apple had its version the Apple Portable (highly original!) which was the forerunner of the Powerbook, whilst Zenith released the MinisPort with 3 inch disk drives (instead of the more usual 3?) and was unrivalled for its compactness, and Psion had the Psion Mobile Computer which had a poor display. Apple also launched the SE/30 in January 1989, their most powerful Mac, priced at ?3495. It had a 20Mb hard disk, 68030CPU and 1Mb RAM. At the very top end of the Mac range was the IICi with an 80Mb hard disk and 4Mb RAM coting ?5450. Apple's Portable had a captive market which explains why it sold theheavy units at ?4500 each including lead acid batteries.
The 486 processor was Intel's latest microprocessor in 1989 and IBM based its PS/2 70-A21 around it with 8Mb RAM and a 120Mb hard disk.
The first cheap 486 clone was the AMT Personal Mainframe offering 2MB RAM, monochrome display and 40Mb hard disk for ?5000.
IBM moved into the RISC market in 1990 with the RS/6000 a workstation at a similar price to a 486 machine but with more power. Lack of software kept the machine in the Unix world and from encroaching onto the PC market - one of IBMs mistakes which some believe led it into financial troubles over the next few years.
Hewlett Packard already dominated the printer market but introduced the Laserjet III an improvement on the Laserjet II. Although bulky, a comprehensive selection of buttons on the front panel made it easy to set up but users found difficulties linking it to their software via printer drivers. PostScript level 2 was announced by Adobe also in 1990, the first major update to the page description language which had become a standard.
In August 1990 Commodore launched its CDTV and interactive CD player linked to an Amiga. The machine was actually shipped about a year later. Three years on it had not made much of an impression on the market and was still awaiting the right software. Then there was the Amiga 3000 with a 25MHz or 33MHz 68030 it was exceedingly fast for an Amiga but failed to live up to the expectations of the Unix brigade byhaving a poor implementation of X-Windows and only average price/performance.
Windows 3.0 was launched in 1990 but it wasn't until 1991 that most of the major software products were available in Windows versions. The success of Windows made Microsoft ambitious and IBM nervous, causing friction in their alliance. This led to an agreement between IBM and Apple whereby they formed 2 jointly owned companies one to develop an object oriented operating system and the other a multimedia hardware and software standard. They also planned to work with Motorola on a new RISC chip and a Unix based operating system compatible with DOS, OS/2, Mac and AIX software.
The first computer superstore in the UK, PCWorld, opened in Croydon, Surrey in 1991. The Psion Series 3 was launched that autumn and the first 386SL notebook arrived from Zenith in June of that year. Provided with 2Mb RAM and a 600Mb hard disk it cost ?3695 - a little overpriced for what it was worth.
After VGA and Super VGA IBM announced XGA in 1991, the next video standard and was completely ignored by the industry. In 1992 IBM improved OS/2 with version 2.20 claiming it ran Windows applications better than Windows, but fully departed from DOS. It flopped.
Microsoft responded by improving Windows to include multimedia capabilities, prettier icons and was faster and more reliable. It was largely an attempt to fix the problems of the old.
A new chip from Intel called the Overdrive doubled the internal clock speed of the 486, but in tests it was found this did not matter much as far as applications were concerned. The chip was incoporated into a processor called the DX/2.
1992 saw better, cheaper colour screens on notebooks and tumblingprices as the recession hit deeper. Manufacturers had to be competitive. But probably the major product to hit the streets was Philips CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) which enables the user to interact with a film (eg choosing different endings), music (listen to, say, just the strings) and so on and also use Photo-CD discs. Any third party multimedia application could be used. It was arguably the last nail in the coffin for Commodore's CDTV.
In fact, it may have been the nail in the coffin for Commodore as they went bust in 1995. They had developed new versions of the Amiga and included PC compatability but users did not get the support they required and not to the level of previous releases. Amiga Technologies Ltd was formed to market the Amiga 1200 now owned by Escom who sold their own PCs through a chain of dedicated high street shops.
After the 486 came the Pentium followed by the Pentium Pro both of which had initial teething problems. Windows 95 also had initial teething troubles despite much pre-launch testing. Microsoft decided that instead of confusing everyone with version numbers products would now carry a year of release. Windows 95 was very much a hyped up product and saw some significant changes to the Windows environment which made it look more like the Mac or OS/2. However, existing products ran much slower than on Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 was not compatible with many products which had used Windows 3.11 nor some software such as utilities.
Apple had moved over to RISC technology with its PowerPC and PowerMac enabling users to use PC applications. It made a few erroneous claims in its advertising which Acorn put right. The move to RISC also meant that Acorn machines could run Mac software.
At the end of 1999 Packard Bell fell by the wayside after heavy losses. NEC had an 88% stake in the company which was formed in 1986 and had been one of the market leaders. It was one of the first to offer preloaded, or bundled, software on computers and the first to colour-code cables to allow ease-of-use. It also pioneered low cost (sub-$1000) PCs. Lowering prices eroded profit margins, causing other companies to pull out of the U.S. desktop PC retail market. These include Acer and IBM, which decided to focus on Internet sales.
The home market, then, has polarised into home games consoles with better and better graphics, the more up-market home computers (STs, Apples and Archimedes) and PCs. Further developments will be based on this with a drift towards multimedia. For example, addon boxes are available to add better sound to a PC, link a video camera to the computer and edit your own movies. Prices continue to fall and products improve (eg it is now possible to get a laser printer for under £500 whereas £1000 or so used to be the norm).
Contents IntroductionCommunications Input Numbers Systems Operating systems Disks