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Some Thoughts on the Development of Personal Computers
by Duane Bristow, Computer Consultant
The Helping Hand BBS (606) 387-4002
Albany, Kentucky 42602
June 14, 1991
Personal Computers were first available on the mass market in
1977. At that time there were basically three brands widely
available, Apple, Tandy, and Commodore. I bought a TRS-80 model
I in the fall of that year and began computer consulting the
next spring. Things have changed a lot in the last 14 years.
These are a few observations on some of the developments and
trends.
In the early 1980s a man would come to me and say, "I have a
problem in my business. It concerns efficiency in office
procedures. I am covered up in writing, bookkeeping, billing,
paying, keeping track of customers, etc. They said you have
been able to show other businesses how to use computers to solve
these problems. Please show me."
I would then analyse his business talking not only to him but
primarily to his secretary and/or bookkeeper(s) to find just how
his business ran, what the problems were, and what was unique
about his business (something almost always was). I would plan
hardware and develop software designed to work efficiently to
solve his problems and to grow with his business for the next
five or (wistfully) ten years. I would install the system,
train his employees and support the system with further
modifications, hardware and software maintenance, additional
training, etc. as needed. This worked well and was always
successful.
Now a man comes to me and says, "I have a problem in my
business. I heard computerizing would solve my problem, so I
read the computer magazines, talked to the computer literacy
instructor at the high school, talked to a number of computer
salesmen, and asked a computer whiz I know who has three
computers and unbelievable games on them (He has the highest
score in town on "Shoot The Martians"). All these people told
me that my problems would be solved if I got a 386 with 4 meg
RAM, 40 meg. hard drive, VGA, laser printer, Windows, Lotus 123,
Dbase and Wordperfect."
"I bought all these, spent months reading the manuals and
installing it all, and got the computer whiz to come by when
school was out and show my employees how to use it all. And,
you know, I still have the problem in my business. As a matter
of fact my employees spend so much time using and learning the
new computer system that I've had to hire an additional employee
to make sure we get the billing out each month. Now, they say
you have solved business problems for others with computers, so
I am willing to pay you to show me how to use this stuff to
solve my problems."
I explain to this man that I was able to solve other's problems
by an analysis of their business and by developing or installing
software specifically for that purpose, that this will not use
all the memory, Windows, 123, and Dbase that he has already
installed, that I use cheaper hardware and charge more for
systems analysis and custom programming and that therefore
solving his problems will require an additional investment of
$2,000 or more and that probably $2,000 of his original
investment will be useless to him. He usually concludes at this
point that I must not know much about computers. He ends up
using parts of whatever of his software he can and decides that
computers can't really do as much as he had been led to believe
after all.
This problem arises primarily because of the way the computer
industry has marketed computers and software in the last 14
years. In the first stage the industry said, "Buy a computer!"
John Q. Public said, "Why?" and the industry said, "Because they
can do anything you tell them." The problem was JQP didn't know
what he wanted them to do and he didn't know how to tell them to
do it anyway. So a couple of real smart guys wrote Visicalc,
the first spreadsheet program for microcomputers. JQP found
that for some things that he was already doing on paper
spreadsheets, a computer with VC was much more efficient. If he
knew how to design a spreadsheet on paper, he could do the same
thing on the computer and increase productivity immensely. He
was programming a computer but he didn't know that.
The industry marketing men saw what had happened and changed
their tactic. They now said, "Buy a computer so you can run
VC." And a number of accountants and other number crunchers did
just that. As a matter of fact some of the more savvy salesmen
began giving away pirated copies of VC with each computer sale.
Their profit was on hardware, not software. Many salesmen who
had never used a paper spreadsheet much less VC told people that
to do anything now they just needed a computer and VC. When
asked what type of thing they might do the computer salesman
replied that JQP could now balance his checkbook with a
computer. Never mind that if JQP didn't know how to balance a
checkbook the computer wasn't going to help and if he did he
certainly didn't need a computer for that.
The next development of interest was the discovery that if one
knew how to type he could increase productivity immensely with a
word processing program. This then developed much the same way
as the VC phenomena.
From the beginning the computer marketers and the media had
envisioned a computer in every household. Problem was that, so
far, computers were selling primarily to accountants and
typists. Apple computer decided that the thing standing in the
way of more computer sales was the fact that not enough people
knew how to use a spreadsheet or to type. Hence the GUI
(Graphical Computer Interface) and the mouse. Theoretically, we
could throw away the keyboard now and everyone could own a
computer. Of course, since this didn't teach one to do
accounting or use a spreadsheet and since you couldn't write a
document with a mouse there was no reason to buy a computer, but
Apple overlooked that. As a matter of fact, after the
introduction of the Macintosh, Apple probably would have gone
out of business if not for one further development.
Someone, (I don't know who but somebody does) came up with the
idea of using the Macintosh for Desktop Publishing, a quantum
extension of word processing which was ideally suited to a GUI
and a mouse. (Course, it also required a keyboard but that was
OK.) This sold so many Macs that Microsoft and IBM took notice
and decided that a GUI must be the way to go.
Others decided that part of the problem with computer sales was
that computers require programs and JQP could not or was afraid
to program. So they wrote applications that would help JQP to
write his own programs but would not let him know that he was
doing so. These took the form of Dbase type programs and a
tremendous increase in the size and complexity of VC which by
now was owned by Lotus and was called 123. The thing they
didn't tell JQP was that by trying to force a computer to do
something with such a general purpose tool as Dbase or 123, he
was sacrificing efficiency and that if the application became
very complex it could be programmed and would work much more
efficiently and easily in a true programming language like
pascal, or C, or compiled basic or whatever. They also didn't
tell JQP that a complex application would be just as hard to
program in Dbase or 123 as in a true language even though it
would not work nearly as well. I knew a hospital controller who
tried to run a hospital billing and accounting system with 123.
You can drill a hole with a hammer and nails too, but a drill is
so much more efficient.
From the very beginning the problem was that computers could
perform miracles in efficiency but only the systems analysts and
the programmers knew how. The marketing planners and the
salesmen didn't, so they misled JQP. Those who most need
computers, mostly businessmen, are not analysts or programmers
and should not be. There were never enough programmers and
analysts to sell the number of computers the industry wanted to
sell. Therefore, efficiency was sacrificed by use of general
purpose programs. Although these usually did not do the job
well (sometimes not at all), they were cheaper than efficient
programs and they were available. The hoax was that JQP was
never told that use of these programs required a sacrifice of
efficiency but was simply led to believe that the inadequacies
of these programs was intrinsic to computers.
Another hoax occurred as the price of computer hardware and
software fell. It is necessary to charge $3,000 to $5,000 for a
computer system to justify enough profit to support the
industry. At first, the price could be maintained by simply
selling more powerful and faster hardware and software to JQP
for the same price that he was used to paying. After a while
though, it became evident that the hardware and software was
already as fast as JQP could ever want to perform most
applications. The solution was to change the operating system
to OS2 and to GUIs such as Windows that were inefficient in
speed and in use of memory. By convincing the public that these
were necessary it became possible to sell even faster machines
with increased memory, etc.
These are my nominations for most significant developments in
microcomputers over the last 14 years with my designation of
each as a right turn or a wrong turn for the industry.
The microcomputer Right turn
Visicalc Right turn
Lotus 123 Wrong turn
Dbase Wrong turn
Hard disk storage Right turn
MSDOS Right turn but a UNIX based OS
would have been better.
Word processors Right turn
GUI Wrong turn
Color Monitor & VGA Right turn
Hayes standard
high speed modems Right turn
communications software
Compuserve and BBSes
Quickbasic, C, Pascal Right turn
The shareware concept Right turn
Desktop publishing Right turn
Laser printers Right turn
Graphics applications
scanners, and mouses Right turn
Networking Right turn
CDROM drives and applications Right turn
Simulations Right turn
Sound applications Right turn