Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Computers as Household Appliance

The Beginning

After the introduction of a colored computer in the 1980's, different computer companies started to design and develop the computers. One of the most significant development was “The IBM PC”, it introduction helped legitimize the PC revolution.


The IBM PC uses an INTEL 4.7Mhz 8088 Processor with 16k of RAM. The IBM PC also has an operating system, the PC DOS, an operating system by Microsoft.

People criticized why IBM used the Intel 8088 processor, instead of other better processors like the Motorola 68000. The reason why they used the Intel 8088 processor is because if they use a Motorola 68000 processor, the IBM PC will be expensive.

The IBM PC was based on open architecture so that it can be developed in the future. Plus using that open design, it dominated the computer industry.


Introduction of the Graphical User Interface

After the introduction of the IBM PC, a company named, XEROX introduced the Graphical User Interface which includes the mouse, buttons, menus and of course the icons. Although people began to recognize the capability computers, the introduction of XEROX was a failure because of the price.

Operating system with GUI

After many years, the Apple Macintosh Computer was introduced. The Macintosh has a Motorola 68000 Macintosh Operating System that contains the cool GUI, the one button mouse, the MacPaint, and the MacWrite.

The Macintosh computer developed more interest and excitement to the people because of WYSIWYG feature of the computer. The Apple Macintosh has changed the way people used computers before.


Multimedia In Computers

After the introduction of the Macintosh, another development took place. A computer called the Amiga, introduced people to computer multimedia.

The Amiga has a multi-tasking operating system. Amiga can display 640x400 screen resolution with 4096 colors. Same as the Macintosh, it uses a Motorolla 68000 proccessor but with a maximum of 8mb RAM. It can create graphics, sound and also video.


Comparing this computer to the Apple Macintosh, this computer is way ahead. For me, I consider this the Core2 Duo of the 1900s.

Computers as Household Appliance

After these developments, processors and memory capacity also began to evolve because of the demand for speed and resource, 3d graphics was also introduced and the birth of the C programming language followed, the programming language of the computer industry which led to many developments.

In the 1900's, after the continuing evolution of the computer industry, people began to realize the power of computers. With this much power, people began to use computers for entertainment, business, graphics, desktop publishing, etc...

As time goes by, computers became more affordable for everyone. This attrated more people to bring a computer at home. People begin to discover that they can make a computer do a specific work. In short, they are starting to see computers as a solution or possibly a household appliance.

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