History of Mordern Computers

BANGALORE, INDIA: It all began with PDP 8, launched by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1964. This minicomputer, followed by several others, had high processing power and capacity that sufficed the needs of mid-range organizations. In 1970s and 80s, minicomputers filled the mid-range area between low powered microcomputers and high capacity mainframes, and ran full multi-user, multitasking operating systems like VMS and UNIX. Whereas, microcomputers encouraged single user and ran simple program based operating systems like MS-DOS.

Altair 8800 : The first Altair 8800 was completed in 1974 by MITS and ran on Microsoft software. The Altair was a capable, inexpensive computer designed around the Intel 8080 microprocessor. It was found that Altair lost its data when the power was shut off, thus restricting the spread of PCs.

Commodore 64, Apple and Macintosh : Altair was followed by two major advances in modern computing- Commodore PET and the Apple 2. The Commodore featured two built-in drives and upto 8 kilobytes of memory, while the Apple 2 succeeded with a printed circuit motherboard, brilliant graphics, game paddles and computer game.

In 1984 Macintosh emerged as the first affordable computer to include a Graphical User Interface. It was built around the new Motorola 68000 chip, which was significantly faster than previous processors, running on 8 MHz.

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IBM PC : In1981, IBM released their first IBM Personal Computer based on Intel 8088 processor and Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. IBM decided to use the Intel 8088 after first considering the Motorola 68000 and the Intel i8086, because the other two were considered to be too powerful.

First desktop : In 1986 Compaq released Deskpro 386, the first desktop to use Intel's latest 80386 chip, giving the PC as much speed and power as some of the older mainframes and minicomputers.

Laptop Computer : The computer considered by most historians to be the first true portable computer was the Osborne 1. Adam Osborne, founded Osborne Computer and invented the Osborne 1 in 1981, a portable computer weighing 24 pounds, with a five-inch screen, modem port, two floppy drives, a large collection of bundled software programs, and a battery pack.

Windows 95 : Windows 95 integrated Microsoft's MS-DOS and Windows products and was significantly superior to its predecessor, Windows 3.1, particularly in the graphical user interface and in its relatively simplified plug-n-play features.

Source: www.pcquest.www.ciol.com