Microcomputer History

About Microcomputer History

Further development of the microcomputer

Further development of the microcomputer started with the Altair by the avalanche rolled with incredible speed. Computer to computer came on the market. The chip-Special No.14 – the computer catalog – from the year 1984 contains the data of some 220 personel and home computers in the field of 100 marks to some 10,000 marks. A small overview of some important micro-computer table on page. In it you can clearly see the trend shows that the micro-computers with more memory and ever new, ever faster microprocessors on the market. Another effect can be seen in magazines: the price decline after the launch of a system is always faster. Could the Apple II over five years at its price of around 600 Euro, so much is the newest generation of IBM-compatible PC two years after the launch including 8 megabytes of memory and hard disk with some 1750 Euro only one third to one fourth of the introduction of price.

Meanwhile, the market is also polarized, it does not come any more microcomputers for all applications in question. Thus, the IBM-compatible for the field office and business applications emerged, and they are relatively cheap, small systems to computers to workstation-class to get. The area to the Apple MacIntosh with the specialized, it is especially desktop publishing (creating artwork under GUI) and more recently multimedia. Apple also sets great emphasis that their computer without lengthy learning an operating system can use. Just like the Atari ST or Amiga are the few who as a home computer or semi are left. Depending on the equipment they will be as pure and home-computer game, for private or similar word processing applications. However, they offer the possibility of professional music or video applications to be able to use. Among them there are the games consoles, which is the computer that they are no longer committed. They are aimed primarily at children, where the game is in the foreground or a complete PC which is too expensive. For the professional field, there are workstations with particularly high computing performance and other characteristics. They represent the upper end of the range of ‘personal’ computer dar.

An IBM PC At the beginning of the 80s played well at IBM, until then, manufacturers of large-scale computing facilities, some engineers with the idea of a personal computer to build. The company’s management was initially skeptical, but after a few trials and convictions provocations (IBM employees threw before, not in a position to be such a small computer to build) got the developers’ group to Don Estridge in Boca Raton the contract, a personal computer develop. It was for IBM ratios totally uncharacteristic approach: the machine was released from purchase parts, including Intel’s 8088-processor, built. The operating system was in a foreign company commissioned. The first company, when demand was Digital Research. But Gary Kildall was just not there, and his wife did not want to return without the language requested by IBM to sign confidentiality agreements. Anecdotes told that Kildall on this day with his private plane was underway and thereby the millions lost business with IBM. The IBM people were in a hurry, and so the contract went to Microsoft. Microsoft was already one of the major software houses, known primarily by Microsoft BASIC, which almost every microcomputer was available. Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft, bought some local programmers a set of floppy disks routines, which are at the core of MS-DOS were. During the negotiations with IBM Gates was so cleverly, MS-DOS itself to everyone to be able to sell, not only to IBM. This finally brought Microsoft millions to be the first IBM-Compatible appeared and needed an operating system. And later in Microsoft software business is benefiting today from the fact that accurate information about the internals of MS-DOS only within the company are known.

The IBM PC appeared in 1981. The reactions were varied. The business world responded enthusiastically, because now, when the computer giant IBM PC on the market was the final PC hoffähig and grow its infancy. The success of the IBM-PC is expected to be mainly psychological reasons. The Apple engineers who at the time of Lisa and MacIntosh worked, commented the IBM PC so: ‘We looked forward their PC to the market closely. First, we found it embarrassing how bad it was apparatus. Then we shifted its success in horror. We hoped that the people MacIntosh would show what the IBM PC was a trite, banal attempt on the basis of the old technology. ” . Steve Jobs commented on the IBM PC as follows: ‘If we for some reason a big mistake and IBM wins, we will be my personal conviction after 20 years in a dark computer-medieval life. [...] The IBM PC is just a new packaging and slight enlargement of the Apple II.

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