A Brief History of Personal Computers

During the 1970s, technology in the United States was still growing as personal computers were not as popular due to their bulky size. Not only were computers large in their form, they also cost more than what an average working class American could pay for. Due to the steppe price of a computer, they were considered more of a novelty item rather than a necessity for everyday use. Although personal computers were not yet seen in homes,

There have been many advances since the initial invention of the computer fifty years ago. Today, computers operate many of the things that we use in everyday life. Some examples of these things are farm machinery, cars, planes, video games, heat and water delivery to our homes, banking, billing, and even the stock market. The advances of the computer have resulted in the

At the time, the personal computer business was in its infancy, and the company sought to fill a niche by providing communication networks to link mainframe computers. Although the company grew rapidly, Mr. Lee felt that the real opportunities for growth lay in personal computers. In the mid-1980s, he decided to make a major switch to the production

The 1940’s was the beginning of an era of computers ruling us. It all started with Konrad Zuse a German engineer creates and finishes the computer called Z3 built in 1941 it was built using 2,300 relays, and used a floating point binary arithmetic, and had a 22 bit word length. Although the original was destroyed in a bombing run in Berlin in late 1943. He supervised a reconstruction of his invention in the 60's which is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. In February of 1946 the ENIAC was released and the public was able to view it, built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert they improved it by 1,000 times since the first computers were released. Started in 1943 it took 3 years to complete and it used a plugboard and switch program, and the speed was about 5,000 operations per second. It took up 1,000 square feet, or the size of a small house! In 1944 the Harvard Mark-1 was completed. Thought by the Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and built by IBM, the dimensions of this beast was room sized, relay-based calculator. Also it had a

The ENIAC was invented by John Mauchly and J.Presper Eckert, Jr.and built from 1943-1945. The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), often referred to as the first computer, was built to supply the need for faster calculations. It started the information age and led to the development of the first commercial computers (The ENIAC).

The PC industry has started to develop fast in the 80 's when IBM launched its first PC series and later on when numerous small companies entered the market. PC is a new product and companies had to create the demand to it from the scratch.

There has been significant improvement over the past 40 years as far as technology is concerned. The advancement of personal computers, the world wide internet, and overall informational technology has changed career development in todays society. The 1980’s was the time of technological impact, and was also known as the decade of the microcomputer outbreak. In August 12th1981, the first IBM Personal Computer (PC) was introduced. For professionals, it was mainly used for word processing. This PC began series of developments for computers. Three years later, the Apple Macintosh was one of the most anticipated release of computers. On January 22nd 1984, the Apple Macintosh was introduced on an advertisement commercial during the Super Bowl XVIII. This new computer included graphical user interface (icons, menu bars, and tools), a mouse, and a built-in screen. As the decade progressed, professionals used computers for record

During the 1970s, technology in the United States was still growing as personal computers were not as popular due to their bulky size. Not only were computers large in their form, they also cost more than what an average working class American could pay for. Due to the steppe price of a computer, they were considered more of a novelty item rather than a necessity for everyday use. Although personal computers were not yet seen in homes,

By the early 1980s, millions of microcomputers had found their way into U.S. businesses and homes, and in 1982, Time magazine dubbed the computer its "Machine of the Year."

With time, the PC continued to evolve and newer models offered better speed, color screens, more memory and larger hard drives. Further technical evolution continued to deliver higher speeds, larger storage capacity both internal and external. In addition to the hardware progression, the PC world continued to see progress with operating system solutions and advanced software catering to both large and small businesses as well as the home owner.

The closest comparison to this small computer at the time was the Altair 8800 and the Intel microprocessors used in calculators and watches. An improved version of the Apple 1 developed into the Apple 11, the first personal computer with graphics and a keyboard, and IBM soon followed Apple’s lead with their version of a small computer. The market for personal computers had been primarily in the business industry. Apple Computer sales netted $50 million by the last quarter of 1979 (Gitman & McDaniel, 2009) and Apple soon became the personal computer of choice for many small businesses and families, especially when Apple introduced the more user- friendly Macintosh computer in the 1980’s. The Macintosh was Apple’s first major step in adapting the personal computer to the desires of corporate America. In ten years, Apple had grown from two employees in a garage to a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees (Jobs, 1985). What began as a hobby for Jobs and Wozniak soon became an essential part of many households and established the foundation for the Apple empire.

By the late 1970s the computing giant IBM had plans for marketing a personal computer for home use. They approached Microsoft to develop the standard operating system for their home computer models. Gates and Allen then went out and purchased for $50,000 an operating system called Q-Dos,

* In 1981, IBM entered PC market used Microsoft’s DOS OS and microprocessor and will be Apple best rival for the start on 1981. Jobs forced out in 1985.

　　The key period of the evolution of modern electronic computer is in between the late 1930s and the early 1950s. Not all of them were invented by the mathematician or physician. Among those machines were pioneering computers put together by english academics notably Manchester/Ferrenti Mark 1, built at Manchester University by Frederic Williams and Thomas Kilburn. And the EDSAC, Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator built by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University.

Compaq and Dell stole IBM’s PC market with the right price and the right message.