Personal Computers

There have been few products in history that have evolved as fast or as often as the personal computer. They have really only been around for about thirty years and in that time the improvements in them have been nothing short of amazing. This has certainly made them more capable than they used to be but it has also made it necessary to constantly upgrade to a new computer.

The evolution of personal computers has been one of the most rapid of any product in the history of the world. The first personal computers started to appear in the seventies as kits that had to be assembled before the computer could be used. These early computers were very limited in what they could do. It was in the early eighties that personal computers really started to move beyond the hobby user. These early computers were capable of little more than the ones that had preceded them. The real big step forward in personal computers came when IBM introduced their PC in 1981.

The reason that the IBM PC was such a huge step forwards was that it was based on an open architecture design. This meant that other makers could make clones of the computer which not only greatly reduced the price but it also allowed the product to be developed. Since development work could be undertaken by anybody there were all of a sudden huge strides being taken in developing the PC. The development of PC's was also helped by the fact that Microsoft maintained control of the operating system so that it could be run on other computers.

The next big step in the evolution of the computer was the introduction of the Macintosh by Apple which was the first to offer a graphical user interface. This made the computer much easier to use and allowed it to become a much more mainstream item. Since then there have been many other developments which have resulted in the modern personal computer being capable of things that the early computer users could never have dreamed of. These developments have continued almost unabated and there is really no end in sight when it comes to future developments.

While the evolution of the computer has been a huge benefit because of the massive increase in capability this has created problems for consumers. The main problem is that the useful life of most computers is at most a couple of years. Computers are constantly being improved to the point where they are obsolete almost as soon as you buy one. In most cases you can continue to use the computer for the next couple of years before it reaches the point where it is too far out of date but this still means that you have to replace your computer fairly regularly. Fortunately the cost of modern personal computers has come down dramatically but it is still a fairly significant expense to have to upgrade to a new one.