Personal Computers

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Personal Computers

By the late 1990s, personal computers (PCs) had found a place in millions of American homes. They were part of everyday life for office workers, as common as coffee cups and paper clips. Personal computers were used in all aspects of the media, in libraries, schools, and businesses of all kinds. Portable models had become a common sight on city streets, on public transport, and in cafes and bars. Yet barely twenty years earlier, PCs were available only to electronics hobbyists and the very rich. For most people in the 1970s, the personal computer was a device straight out of science fiction.

The PC revolution was made possible by the invention of the microprocessor—a computer chip that contains the entire central processing unit (CPU) of the computer. Before the late 1970s, computers were so large they had special rooms all to themselves. They needed a controlled climate and high levels of cleanliness to protect their sensitive electronics from dust and changes in temperature. Reducing complex electronic circuits to the size of a fingernail, microprocessors were robust enough to withstand normal working conditions and small enough to make computers more manageable in size. They were used in hand-held electronic calculators, wristwatches, and simple game machines. Microprocessors also became the key component in the PC.

Just who invented the PC is open to debate. Companies like IBM (see entry under 1980s—Commerce in volume 5), Apple Computer (see entry under 1970s—The Way We Lived in volume 4), and Xerox (see entry under 1960s—Commerce in volume 3) all have claimed to have done so. But the first PCs probably belonged to computer hobbyists. They bought electronic components and assembled the machines themselves. As the cost of microprocessors fell in the late 1970s, companies like Acorn, Apple, Atari (see entry under 1970s—Sports and Games in volume 4), and Tandy started to sell computers that were little more than ready-made hobbyist machines. Users had to be familiar with computer programming to make early PCs work. The machines had tiny amounts of memory by modern standards. A standard Tandy TRS-80 personal computer from 1980 had just eight thousand bytes (8K) of usable memory, with no hard disk. That is enough memory to hold just half a page of a basic word-processing document. Files and software were stored on a standard cassette tape.

The Apple II computer, released in 1977, was the best of the early PCs. It was the first to reach a mass market with speed and real computing power. But it was another seven years before the PC became accessible to users with no previous computing knowledge. In 1984, Apple's Macintosh computer had many of the features familiar on PCs in 2001. It was the first mass-market PC to use "drag and drop" icons, overlapping "windows," and a mouse. Known as Graphical User Interface (GUI), this system of opening files and running programs quickly became the standard.

Apple's major competitor in the early 1980s was IBM. Apple and IBM used different microprocessors, but although Apple computers were superior in terms of speed and computing power, other companies copied IBM's design. Before long, Hewlett Packard, Dell, and other computer makers began to swamp the market with PCs based on the IBM model. Running Windows software made by Microsoft (see entry under 1990s— Commerce in volume 5), these computers were cheap and used a GUI that was similar to Apple's. Both Apple and IBM had problems in the late 1980s, but the IBM platform became the standard for the desktop PC in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, major advances in the speed and efficiency of microprocessors changed the way PCs were used. In the 1980s, portable computers were the size and weight of a small well-packed suitcase. By 2001, "laptop" computers are small enough to fit in a briefcase and could be used in much the same way as a "desktop" PC. Smaller still, a fully functional handheld PC, complete with miniaturized keyboard and screen, will fit in the palm of a man's hand. Other handheld computers can recognize handwriting traced on a small screen. These pocket-sized PCs are sometimes known as personal digital assistants (PDAs). All these machines are much more powerful than the first PCs. Many exceed the capabilities of the huge "mainframe" computers of the 1960s and 1970s.

In its short life, the personal computer has grown from a hobbyist's toy into an essential everyday item. Once used mainly for word processing and data storage, the PC at the start of the twenty-first century is also a communication tool, a games machine, a sound and video system, and a place to store the family photographs. Since the advent of the World Wide Web, it has also become a shopping mall (see entry under 1950s—Commerce in volume 3), a reference library, and the first place to look for new recipes, cheap airline tickets, and classified advertisements. Personal computers have also made possible the growth in working at home and telecommuting. As new, smaller, more powerful PCs take on functions once performed by other machines, it is possible that the old-fashioned desktop PC will eventually disappear. The PCs of the late twentieth century changed forever the way we think about work and leisure.

—Chris Routledge