Current state of computers & who to thank

[Candy]

As current computers are both very fast, have huge memories, huge harddisks and other storage media, most of these progresses would have been slower or nonexistant if no companies were around to help it (hypothesis). What company or companies contributed the most?

I was wondering, because I even think that the current state, both in positive & negative sense, is mainly because Microsoft got around with global domination with MSDOS and Microsoft Windows. Even though the global domination is what we fight right here (for most people), we still use the computers that exist because Windows requires it.

[bubach]

I think it was IBM by making the PC, and by (forgetting?) to take a patent on it..
This made it possible to many other computer "builders" (lack of word) to make IBM compatible computers.

[Adek336]

IBM- for not pateting the computer,
Microsoft- for creating a standard for software(Windows, Office, IE) so everybody uses this standard. This is why the innovation is so slow

[srg]

IBM- for not pateting the computer,
Microsoft- for creating a standard for software(Windows, Office, IE) so everybody uses this standard. This is why the innovation is so slow

Agreed that Innovation has slowed. But standards are a good thing. It means people don't get left out in the cold with software, hardware or data that can't be used on another system. Without standards, we'd be back to the '80s where every machine was different.

srg

[Eero Ränik]

I'd like to thank absolutely every computer company. After all, without them all, we wouldn't be in exactly the same state...
Actually, IBM and Microsoft did a great job. Without the standards the innovation would be much slower I think. You do know the story about the Tower of Babel?

[Neo]

... Tower of Babel?

I know this is off topic. (but i couldnt resist that quote). IMHO the Tower of Babel has an even more realistic parallel. I call it UNICODE.
The whole world seemed to be coming together with a single common language and then we created UNICODE which encourages non-UNI-ty

[Adek336]

But standards are a good thing. It means people don't get left out in the cold with softwar

well perhaps I did not explain my thoughts clearly. Indeed standards are very helpful, so f.ex. g++ output may link with Watcom's output. What I meant to be bad, was that single programs have monopolised many markets- like IE, Windows, Office. Just imagine the Linux world- Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx/ many distros, BSDs, Mach/ OpenOffice, ABIWord (or sumfin' like that) - well this is diversity, thanks to which the products are not selled above their worth and the authors try to develope them.

Cheers,
Adrian.

[anubis]

Hi all,
I think that one company that had a very major role in shaping the computer industry indirectly through many miscellaneous Inventions like the

1.Laser printer
2.Smalltalk the first OOPL(object oriented language)
3.Client/Server architecture
4.Personal distributed computing
5.What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editor
6.a commercial mouse for input
7.a graphical user interface (GUI)
8."Ethernet"
9.frame buffer
10.BITBlt (A quick manipulation of the pixels of an image )
11.A software document architecture that enables device-dependent aspects of imaging to be cleanly separated from generic imaging operations (hmmm... seems postscript et al all were dervied from this)
12.Dorado, a high-performance personal computer, and Notetaker, a suitcase-sized machine (note:: the first notebook pc)(in 1978!!!)
13.A "worm" program(in 1978!!!), way back than the first virus(Brain)...
14.Network Architecture IFS "interim file server" code is completed. A precursor teh File servers!!!
15.non-erasable magneto-optical storage device technologies.
16.electronic printing system.
17.optical cable local area network
18.one-inch array of amorphous silicon thin-film transistors to drive a small corjet ionographic print head is made.( An important part of the MFD(Multi Function Devices) available today).
19.world's first multi-beam lasers.
20.first wide-format engineering laser plotter.
21.Revolutionary work begins in building fundamental mobile devices (the palm-sized PARCTabs and the book-sized PARCPads) way back in 1988!!!
22. more..... I am getting tired of listing them.... please look at their site mentioned below...

It was hugely rumoured and i think its true that both Billy and Steve Jobs got the idea of the GUI when they visited this company.
And the company is

XEROX PARC.

[Rainer]

I would say microsoft. because they write the os's the majority of us use(from dos all the way to win xp). I'm not praising them for this though. It is because of them we are constantly upgrading, and getting headaches because of bugs and constant software problems.

[mr-t]

I would say IBM for making a PC out of non-propriatery components, they completely went against the trend (the motor from your ford aint gonna work in your toyota is it?)

I'm sure if M$ hadn't made DOS or windoze, we would all be using Linux.

[sonneveld]

I would say Compaq for reverse engineering the IBM PC BIOS, paving the way for others to make clones.

- Nick

[Solar]

Microsoft- for creating a standard for software(Windows, Office, IE) so everybody uses this standard. This is why the innovation is so slow

Agreed that Innovation has slowed. But standards are a good thing. It means people don't get left out in the cold with software, hardware or data that can't be used on another system.

Erm... sorry but that's exactly the situation we are in...

The "standards" that Microsoft did set leave people out in the cold with software, hardware and data that can't be used on any other system but Windows. Hotspot improvements like OpenOffice.org, Samba etc. nonwithstanding, compatibility is a major issue today, which is felt all the stronger the smaller your market share is.

The standard is whatever Microsoft decrees.

Without standards, we'd be back to the '80s where every machine was different.

I strongly disagree, even if I can't prove it. In the 80ies, system interchange wasn't *that* much of an issue because there wasn't that much of connectivity. Even then, a trend to open standards was tangible (IFF being just one example).

With the advent of widespread connectivity, it would have been in the very interest of every single company to have open standards. We would all be using XML for documents and spreadsheets today, instead of fiddling around with Word and Excel formats.

While the hardware manufacturers entered a breakneck competition that brought us the GeForce 4, Athlon 64 and Gigabit Ethernet. The OS sector froze right after Windows NT 4 / Win95 due to lack of competition. (Quick, what improvements came after NT 4? Erm... exactly.)

[srg]

I strongly disagree, even if I can't prove it. In the 80ies, system interchange wasn't *that* much of an issue because there wasn't that much of connectivity. Even then, a trend to open standards was tangible (IFF being just one example).

With the advent of widespread connectivity, it would have been in the very interest of every single company to have open standards. We would all be using XML for documents and spreadsheets today, instead of fiddling around with Word and Excel formats.

While the hardware manufacturers entered a breakneck competition that brought us the GeForce 4, Athlon 64 and Gigabit Ethernet. The OS sector froze right after Windows NT 4 / Win95 due to lack of competition. (Quick, what improvements came after NT 4? Erm... exactly.)

My appologies, I meant open standards. Of course closed standards are as bad as no standards at all as it means product lock in.

srg

[Solar]

My appologies, I meant open standards. Of course closed standards are as bad as no standards at all as it means product lock in.

...and Microsoft didn't bring us that many *open* standards, did they?

[srg]

My appologies, I meant open standards. Of course closed standards are as bad as no standards at all as it means product lock in.

...and Microsoft didn't bring us that many *open* standards, did they?

I never said they did.

srg