HISTORY:

The first computational device was the abacus.  This has been
in continuous use for thousands of years.  During the 1600's the
Pascal adding machine was developed.  This was a mechanical
device which laid the groundwork for today's odometers and
gas meters.  The 1800's saw many machines developed that were
controlled by punch cards - weaving looms, etc.  The
theoretical basis for electronic circuitry was developed in
the mid 1800's.

The first electronic computer was developed in 1942 at Iowa
State College.  From this point forth there were numerous
firsts as computers became less mechanical, smaller, faster
and cheaper.  IBM began dominating the computer market by the
mid-1950's and still does today in the mainframe (very large
computer installation) market.  Digital Equipment Corp.
(DEC) became a significant competitor by the mid-1960's.  DEC
is generally considered technically better (faster, smaller,
etc.) than IBM but still only has a fraction of the total
market due to marketing snafus.  Today the Cray Supercomputer
is the fastest in the world, is manufactured in Wisconsin,
and is set in a vat of liquid helium to increase the
conductivity for faster operation.

                     TIME vs SPEED

Method of Calculation             Approximate Speed
Human (manual calculation)        1 each 60 seconds
Burroughs E101 (1954)             4 per second
IBM 1130 (1964)                   600,000 per second
DEC PDP 11 (1974)                 1,000,000 per second
Cray supercomputer                13,000,000 per second

The Personal Computer is defined by its size, cost
applications for small business and the home.   The first one
appeared in January 1975 and was the Altair 8800 kit.  Only
hobbyist bought these.  Then the Radio Shack TRS 80 and Apple
computers hit the market as the first pre-assembled
microcomputers.

Market growth remained sluggish until two business students -
Dan Bricklin and Dan Fylstra developed a program to run on
Apple computers to handle the tedious recalculations in their
school assignments.  This program was called VisiCalc and is
the forerunner to the spreadsheet program Lotus 123.

With VisiCalc as a useful tool, Apple sales took off.  Apple
became the standard because all programs were written for
Apple.  Today we still see Apple dominate the school market.

In 1981 IBM introduced its PC which is unable to run Apple
software.  Unlike Apple or other IBM products, the IBM PC had
an open architecture which means the technical details of how
it operated were published right along with the product's
introduction.  This permitted hundreds of companies to write
software (programs) for the IBM PC as well as a variety of
accessories.  Adding IBM's sterling reputation, the open
architecture did enable rapid market penetration.  The
microcomputer was no longer a toy, it was a business tool.

The open architecture however, also allowed for the
generation of a host of lower cost compatible computers.
IBM had traded quick initial market entry for eventual erosion
of market share.  In both instances, we the consumers
benefit.



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