Then and Now: How 30 Years of Progress Have Changed PCs

[neeyik]

Over the last 30 years, the PC has utterly transformed in appearance, capability, and usage. From the hulking beige boxes to an astonishing array of powerful, colorful, and astonishing computers.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2693-30-years-of-pc-progress/

 

[UdyrL]

"Join us as we examine the PC's metamorphosis from awkward hulking beige boxes to an astonishing array of powerful, colorful, and astonishing computers."

So astonishing it had to be said twice.

 

[punctualturn]

One thing that is often ignored, is how we had superior operating system that were criminally killed by M$ illegal actions.

GEOS Works Ensemble (PC version) was simply ahead of its time, same for the amazing BeOS.

Imagine todays hardware running on either one of those OS's.

 

[ET3D]

If you add "home computers" into the mix (and not just IBM clones), I think that the main difference is the internet.

In terms of what was done, in '85 we had the Amiga, and people gamed on it, and did word processing on it, and it had long filenames and preemptive multitasking.

The PC did open up an ecosystem of expandability, and that improved over time, but we're also at a point where even on PC people are mainly buying laptops, where expansions are very limited.

 

[p51d007]

My first experience with a PC was the TRS-80 we had in school. My FIRST computer I owned was a
Compaq "portable". Dos 3.3 I think. Two floppy drives, 1 meg of memory and that "huge" 9" (I think)
green screen along with a 2400 bps external modem.

 

[LuxZg]

I think next 30 years will being everything upside down. Even now, at least before COVID, a lot of people only had tablets and smartphones at home. I think that trend will continue. We're slowly but surely integrating PC(-like) computing into other devices... Smarphones, tablets, smart TVs, wearables of all kinds. You can already make a smartphone your "PC" (stuff like Samsung DeX). Apple recently pushed AR (VR) as a main compute device. With processing power outgrowing software needs, except for games I guess and few PRO uses, we can probably plot a future where something like smarphone or smartwatch can do anything a PC user would need. With cloud, processing could even be done remotely, and all you'd have is an "Internet" connected terminal (input/output). With voice and AI getting more advanced, I could see a future where keyboard and mouse aren't needed. So all you'd need would be voice (input) and display (output) lmus connectivity. Connectivity is already there, with 5G and "6G" offering all you need even on smartwatch, and it will grow further. Voice input is just a microphone, and AI such as we already have is almost good enough, give it another 30y it may just as well read your mind by then. All we're left with is - visual output. We've gone from CRT, to LCD, to flexible displays, and wannabe holographics, same with projectors. We moved, but form factor is pretty much the same. I don't belive AR/VR glasses will change much. But hey, 30 years from now? Hmmm... Digital AR (see-through) contact lenses? Or simple chip attached to optical nerves or somewhere in the visual cortex? Ok ok, might be a bit further out... But I vote for contact lenses I can guarantee one thing, PCs as we know today will disappear, and will simply be built into something somewhere, and we'll just call it or think about it and it will come to the rescue. Forget the classics of the "box", display and kbd/mouse. Box will probably be either tiny ot remote, and other stuff will go away, replaced by better solutions. As for the "box", it will probably be ultra-integred. See what Apple did with M1/M2, think that but on even more integrated. Real SoC, not even as M2 or RPi, but truly a chip (package) that includes processor, graphics, memory, storage, connectivity, everything.

 

[hwertz]

One thing that is often ignored, is how we had superior operating system that were criminally killed by M$ illegal actions.

GEOS Works Ensemble (PC version) was simply ahead of its time, same for the amazing BeOS.

Imagine todays hardware running on either one of those OS's.

I'm just glad Linux decided to develop Linux and that came out.

You're right, GEOS was nice; there was GEM; I don't know if BeOS would have been a factor since they were running that on their own BeBox machines (running PowerPCs) although if Microsoft hadn't already had a lock on PCs they may have just gone ahead and done BeOS on PCs as well; even OS/2 was pretty nice for the little while I used it.

For that matter, if IBMs meeting with Digital Research had gone differently (Gary Killdall, head of the company, was on a boating trip when they showed up), you would have had like an alternate-reality 1980s-1990s PC experience with CP/M, MP/M (multi-tasking, multi-user CP/M... which was already up and running for several years before the IBM PC came out), GEM (they had a earlier system called GSS already by the time the PC came out), and CP/NET (which was out already when the IBM PC came out.. supported file sharing, print sharing I think, and remote terminal logins already by the time the IBM PC came out... it didn't specify what hardware you needed for a network, so it ran on everything from a point-to-point serial port through Ethernet at the time, although apparently the sub-1mbps probably RS422 multi-drop-serial-port type stuff was more common due to Ethernets very high cost, and probably overkill speeds given the speeds the systems of the time could really handle.)

I just say I'm glad Linux came out mainly because, to be honest, Microsoft was beginning to get pretty complacent especially in the late 1990s through early 2000s and their technology was starting to stagnate. I mean, WinXP was great but it had little new technology or internal improvements over WinNT4 or Windows 2000. (DirectX was the big one, but it was really a built-in addon, it was available as an addon for Windows 2000.) Linux didn't have high market share at the time but I think the rate of technological development on it gave them a real scare to start making some serious technological improvements (especially since they couldn't just buy or bankrupt some company to get it off the market..) And newer Windows versions are better for it. (Some missteps like UWP -- Universal Windows Platform -- but some really digging into that NT kernel and caching systems and so on to make real improvements.)

 

[punctualturn]

I don't know if BeOS would have been a factor since they were running that on their own BeBox machines (running PowerPCs) although if Microsoft hadn't already had a lock on PCs they may have just gone ahead and done BeOS on PCs as well

They stopped selling BeBoxes and released a version of BeOS on PC and it ran way better and faster than anything that M$ had. Except maybe against some of the features in NT.

even OS/2 was pretty nice for the little while I used it.

I forgot to add OS/2, but to a point, OS/2 was betrayed by IBM itself, after survivng the first assesination attempt at the hands of M$.

I'm glad Linux came out

I agree but observing some of their philosophies, sadly Linux its is own worse enemies.

Example, until they dont change their ways of handling drivers and other things, they will never be able to take over the desktop.

I hope to be proven wrong on that last one.

I do wonder if Google will surprise us with Fuchsia...

 

[hwertz]

They stopped selling BeBoxes and released a version of BeOS on PC and it ran way better and faster than anything that M$ had. Except maybe against some of the features in NT.

I forgot to add OS/2, but to a point, OS/2 was betrayed by IBM itself, after survivng the first assesination attempt at the hands of M$.

I did not know that... I remember seeing the BeBox demos and thinking it was cool as hell, I had no idea they ported it to PC. Nice! I'm kind of tempted to see if I could fire it up in VirtualBox... I do have an Optiplex GX260 that it could (probably) physically run on, but given the current high price on "vintage" PC hardware I'm planning to retire it as my DVR and sell it.

Agreed regarding OS/2... I can't disagree there. I mean, hell, I remember cracking open like a PC Magazine or something, and they'd bought a *50* page ad... with a large portion of the pages listing bugs they'd fixed! I mean, it's good to say like "Oh, this is the most reliable version ever" but blowing the kind of money it must have cost to buy 50 pages, then use like a dozen or more pages of it to list bugs you've fixed? They must have had the worst marketing company ever working on that (and I do recall reading years later that they did indeed fire the marketing firm a while after those ads came out.)

 

[kinetix]

Oh boy.
Coincidentally, a couple of months ago nostalgia assailed me and I am now reassembling two of my old computers that I still have all or almost all of their parts (everything has received a deep cleaning)

I am mounting them on both sides of a nice wooden plank, with the HDDs, floppy and CD drives. everything in an aesthetically interesting guts-out way.
The only problem is the PSU (I will only use one, the best of the two) that has some problem and I have to fix it. its failure is rare as it was stored along with everything else in a working state. one system is a 486 (a 133MHz AMD 5x86) the other a Pentium (a 233 MHz MMX). back then I had both with some OC.

what I regret is not having both audio cards. I gave them both to friends, sometime over the last 20+ years. also gave away my good old IBM Model M keyboard, now I have to use a substitute. at least I keep the two serial mice, the turbo buttons and the led display that showed the speed, LOL. the cases did not survive, I even used the metal sheet for other projects.

For the pentium I want a better video card than the S3 Virge DX I have, but that will be it for now. maybe I'll get an ATI 3D Rage Pro.

I have a couple of displays, a medium quality Acer and an superb Samsung from the mid 2000s, one of the two best CRTs I have ever seen or used. It is 20", but unfortunately it also has some problem in its power supply that I have to fix.

I laughed when I saw the image with the description of how 32 MB cost a fortune in 1993, because I have here more than 100MB in FP and EDO RAM sticks. If I could travel back in time to sell them I would be rich, hahaha.

 

[punctualturn]

I did not know that... I remember seeing the BeBox demos and thinking it was cool as hell, I had no idea they ported it to PC. Nice! I'm kind of tempted to see if I could fire it up in VirtualBox... I do have an Optiplex GX260 that it could (probably) physically run on, but given the current high price on "vintage" PC hardware I'm planning to retire it as my DVR and sell it.

You are in for a nice surprise here: https://www.haiku-os.org/

Wiki entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

Agreed regarding OS/2... I can't disagree there. I mean, hell, I remember cracking open like a PC Magazine or something, and they'd bought a *50* page ad... with a large portion of the pages listing bugs they'd fixed! I mean, it's good to say like "Oh, this is the most reliable version ever" but blowing the kind of money it must have cost to buy 50 pages, then use like a dozen or more pages of it to list bugs you've fixed? They must have had the worst marketing company ever working on that (and I do recall reading years later that they did indeed fire the marketing firm a while after those ads came out.)

This is actually sad to watch, but provided closure for me.

 

[amghwk]

Good topic, but can't help the feeling that this article is incoherent, incomplete, not much effort is put into the research and too rushed out.

 

[hwertz]

Oh boy.
Coincidentally, a couple of months ago nostalgia assailed me and I am now reassembling two of my old computers that I still have all or almost all of their parts (everything has received a deep cleaning)

I am mounting them on both sides of a nice wooden plank, with the HDDs, floppy and CD drives. everything in an aesthetically interesting guts-out way.
The only problem is the PSU (I will only use one, the best of the two) that has some problem and I have to fix it. its failure is rare as it was stored along with everything else in a working state. one system is a 486 (a 133MHz AMD 5x86) the other a Pentium (a 233 MHz MMX). back then I had both with some OC.

what I regret is not having both audio cards. I gave them both to friends, sometime over the last 20+ years. also gave away my good old IBM Model M keyboard, now I have to use a substitute. at least I keep the two serial mice, the turbo buttons and the led display that showed the speed, LOL. the cases did not survive, I even used the metal sheet for other projects.

For the pentium I want a better video card than the S3 Virge DX I have, but that will be it for now. maybe I'll get an ATI 3D Rage Pro.

I have a couple of displays, a medium quality Acer and an superb Samsung from the mid 2000s, one of the two best CRTs I have ever seen or used. It is 20", but unfortunately it also has some problem in its power supply that I have to fix.

I laughed when I saw the image with the description of how 32 MB cost a fortune in 1993, because I have here more than 100MB in FP and EDO RAM sticks. If I could travel back in time to sell them I would be rich, hahaha.

You might want to see what those sticks are selling for now, you might still get a minor fortune for them. Pricing on this older hardware is starting to get insane (as I suppose people want to set them up for retro gaming but the supply of parts is finally drying up..). Oddly I priced out the 500GB IDE HDD I have, the going rate is like $50, but the smaller IDE drives are going for like $150 a pop (I've got about 8 of them and I think it may be time to sell... well I had about 15 of them but when I plugged them in for testing about half of them had croaked). When I saw just about any ISA cards (like even some random sound card, or a 1MB VGA card) are going for like $250 a pop, I went to dig out my box of like 10-15 cards, but couldn't find them... I think I may have recycled them 4 or 5 years back.. Ahh well.

Edit: It's kind of reminding me of the situation with VCRs, I just assumed you'd be able to find cheap used ones indefinitely since they were churned out by the millions, but in fact they are getting more rare and costly too, about $250 used. Luckily when a relative wanted a tape digitized late last year, the VCR I had stored away for about 13 years, it was all stiffened up but after about a half hour of hitting fast forward and rewind it actually loosened up and started working fine. The old Athlon XP SFF computer with an old version of gentoo and video capture card I'd stashed away with it worked too, although it had a dead clock battery. It showed a previous login of some time in 2009, that's how I know it was all stored away for a bit over 13 years.

(I do have about a dozen Model Ms though... I got some when I worked at University Surplus for like $1 apiece about 20 years back. I might sell off some of those too... I thought I'd need some for spare parts, but considering my "daily driver" is 36 years old (manufacturing date is like Feb. 1987) and it doesn't even show any signs of wear, I'm thinking I don't need so many spares.)

 

[hwertz]

You are in for a nice surprise here: https://www.haiku-os.org/

Wiki entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS


This is actually sad to watch, but provided closure for me.

Oh I've heard of Haiku OS, didn't really put together that it was a spiritual successor as it were of BeOS. And I'm going to watch that youtube vid, it's a bit late to do it tonight but I fired up a tab with it so I'll remember to watch it tomorrow. I do love knowing plenty about tech history...

 

[LuxZg]

I'm just glad Linux decided to develop Linux and that came out.

You're right, GEOS was nice; there was GEM; I don't know if BeOS would have been a factor since they were running that on their own BeBox machines (running PowerPCs) although if Microsoft hadn't already had a lock on PCs they may have just gone ahead and done BeOS on PCs as well; even OS/2 was pretty nice for the little while I used it.

For that matter, if IBMs meeting with Digital Research had gone differently (Gary Killdall, head of the company, was on a boating trip when they showed up), you would have had like an alternate-reality 1980s-1990s PC experience with CP/M, MP/M (multi-tasking, multi-user CP/M... which was already up and running for several years before the IBM PC came out), GEM (they had a earlier system called GSS already by the time the PC came out), and CP/NET (which was out already when the IBM PC came out.. supported file sharing, print sharing I think, and remote terminal logins already by the time the IBM PC came out... it didn't specify what hardware you needed for a network, so it ran on everything from a point-to-point serial port through Ethernet at the time, although apparently the sub-1mbps probably RS422 multi-drop-serial-port type stuff was more common due to Ethernets very high cost, and probably overkill speeds given the speeds the systems of the time could really handle.)

I just say I'm glad Linux came out mainly because, to be honest, Microsoft was beginning to get pretty complacent especially in the late 1990s through early 2000s and their technology was starting to stagnate. I mean, WinXP was great but it had little new technology or internal improvements over WinNT4 or Windows 2000. (DirectX was the big one, but it was really a built-in addon, it was available as an addon for Windows 2000.) Linux didn't have high market share at the time but I think the rate of technological development on it gave them a real scare to start making some serious technological improvements (especially since they couldn't just buy or bankrupt some company to get it off the market..) And newer Windows versions are better for it. (Some missteps like UWP -- Universal Windows Platform -- but some really digging into that NT kernel and caching systems and so on to make real improvements.)

In all honesty, Linux made biggest success as - Android. And failure of Microsoft in mobile space is probably what scared them the most and made them work harder on Windows. Even with their renewed efforts on desktop, it's a fact that Windows is today a minority OS if you include mobile devices (which ARE small "Personal Computers"). I think we can talk about roughly 3 billion Android devices, a billion on iOS, and a billion on Windows... Sure, those aren't desktops or laptops, but they pretty much do almost everything that average consumers need today.

 

[rmcrys]

There isn´t much to predict:
- tech evolves and gets cheaper for the performance
- most demanding features are already (since many years ago) integrated on the hardware as video, sound and image acceleration
- most MOBILE chips (or similar) as the ones from many high end smartphones have enough power for over 95% of the users and use cases. Any high-end smartphone or tablet can edit 4K in a breeze without any issues at all; at the same time browse the web, etc.

Already with my S20 Ultra, now with my S22 Ultra and with my midrange Samsung Tab S6 Lite (writing on it right now) I use them for my life (private and professional) over 98% of the time. Making 4K videos and photos, editing, printing, edit documents and browsing the web, accessing my NAS, bank, payments, etc I do it on these devices and most people also. Look at me, I can use DeX even to substitute my PC if I want, amazing!

If we try to tell the future:
- Samsung Fold 4 similar devices will be the norm (specially if they get better and thinner), people won´t need a PC, they can just plug a HUB (with HDMI + BT keyboard/mouse + eventually an SSD or NAS over the network) in and keep working as a PC

- a standalone PC / laptop will start being just for a product for professionals that need huge amounts of power or for hard core gamers (yes, people that play on smartphones, tablets and consoles are also gamers)

- cloud: you pay a monthly fee to use a high power device over the cloud, where you work on your smartphone as you would work if you had that PC in front of you.

At the end we will go almost "mobile" exclusive where our "life" is in our hand or pocket.

 

[kinetix]

You might want to see what those sticks are selling for now, you might still get a minor fortune for them. Pricing on this older hardware is starting to get insane (as I suppose people want to set them up for retro gaming but the supply of parts is finally drying up..). Oddly I priced out the 500GB IDE HDD I have, the going rate is like $50, but the smaller IDE drives are going for like $150 a pop (I've got about 8 of them and I think it may be time to sell... well I had about 15 of them but when I plugged them in for testing about half of them had croaked). When I saw just about any ISA cards (like even some random sound card, or a 1MB VGA card) are going for like $250 a pop, I went to dig out my box of like 10-15 cards, but couldn't find them... I think I may have recycled them 4 or 5 years back.. Ahh well.

Edit: It's kind of reminding me of the situation with VCRs, I just assumed you'd be able to find cheap used ones indefinitely since they were churned out by the millions, but in fact they are getting more rare and costly too, about $250 used. Luckily when a relative wanted a tape digitized late last year, the VCR I had stored away for about 13 years, it was all stiffened up but after about a half hour of hitting fast forward and rewind it actually loosened up and started working fine. The old Athlon XP SFF computer with an old version of gentoo and video capture card I'd stashed away with it worked too, although it had a dead clock battery. It showed a previous login of some time in 2009, that's how I know it was all stored away for a bit over 13 years.

(I do have about a dozen Model Ms though... I got some when I worked at University Surplus for like $1 apiece about 20 years back. I might sell off some of those too... I thought I'd need some for spare parts, but considering my "daily driver" is 36 years old (manufacturing date is like Feb. 1987) and it doesn't even show any signs of wear, I'm thinking I don't need so many spares.)

If I remember correctly, when I dismantled the MMX system it had 48 MB of RAM installed (I remember I planned to take it to its max 96MB although it didn't really gain much, if any, in performance), and the 5x85 had 32 MB, I think. It really seems to me that back then the memory sticks came easily to my hand. I will upgrade the 486 motherboard cache to 512KB (from 256KB) with chips salvaged from another identical one.

mmm, about the RAM. I did some research, I saw the average prices and I did the math. all in all I think I have more than 600 USD worth of memory sticks. I cant believe 32MB 72 pins FPM sells for twice as much as a 256 MB PC133 SDRAM . the older 30 pins are a lot cheaper, like half, pennies in comparison (I also have these other two types). It is seen that the most sought after are the 72-pin ones, apparently there is a lot of interest in the hardware of this period.

Yep, I have several IDE HDDs, but first I want to try the older ones to see what I have on them. I don't think I find much forgotten, because I keep almost everything over time, at least the most important thing, I maintain a backup system. Also, my file and folder structure has stayed very similar for the last 25 years. I'm interested in the oldest HDD I have, a 150 MB one that had so many problems that I had to use it in DOS without loading anything extra, just pure COMMAND.COM.

I also want to try my old Epson LX-250, I have to re-ink the print ribbon. The last time it printed anything was about 15 years ago, as a test before putting it into storage.

Anyway, I've got DosBox and PCem up and running to relive those times, but it's not the same as running things on the original time correct hardware.

Since you mention VCRs, too bad years ago I lost some equipment and parts in a small fire in my garage, caused by a spark that flew through a window while I was welding some bars. I at least salvaged all the parts I could for other repairs and projects. In that fire I lost a beautiful Sony Beta/BetaMax player (partially made of wood or its imitation). I still have a tape but I don't remember what was recorded on it. Someday I'll look for someone who has a player to make a capture, if it's worth it. I lost the Beta player but the VHS survived.

EDIT: nice. I have another PSU that I thought was bad, but it works! and the one that I thought was the good one, is the one with problems! LOL! . Apart from a good cleaning, I did an exchange of parts between the two, improving the functional PSU. the voltages and currents are excellent. Incredible for a 25 year old PSU (although it hasn't been used for more than 15). Now I can continue with the project

 

[quadibloc]

I thought it was Apple, not Microsoft, that took legal action against GEM Desktop for infringing some of its interface patents.