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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Spokane Public Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In
computer news this week
02/01/2012 A time for new definitions - a tablet is not a pc ….. it’s a specialized device.
What is the definition of computer ? An electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations. The first computer – the Eniac back in the
1940’s – was designed to compute shell trajectories in warfare. It took only twenty seconds to compute
the trajectory of a shell that took 30 seconds to reach its target. The
designers of the Eniac went on to start their own
company, Univac, and competed with the IBM corporation in the mainframe computer
industry. In 1975 the first personal computer kit – the Altair –
was introduced. You had to be an electronics technician to build it, and a
computer programmer to make it do anything, but it actually would compute
when it was finished. Later in the 70’s Apple and other vendors introduced their
first personal computers, and in 1982 IBM introduced its first pc. The killer application, or the software program that made these
first computers so valuable to business people, was spreadsheet programs like Visicalc or Lotus 123 that would let you create a model of
your departmental budget, and then allow you to do “what if” modeling,
and the computer would compute and recompute different
scenarios. The PC revolution started with computational spreadsheet
programs, and soon pc’s replaced mainframe computers
. The role of a pc was to do
business applications, spreadsheets, accounting, vertical market applications,
all involving computing. As pc’s
evolved, they got more powerful in terms of the microprocessors they used,
and their storage capacity. Most pc’s today have far more computational
horsepower than the early mainframes. The role of a personal computer has changed over the years, in
addition to business applications, pc’s now are expected to navigate
the Web and send email, related to business operations. Tablets simply
are not the same as pc’s; they’re a different device with very
different uses. The micro processors in tablets are not as powerful than in
pc’s;. What people actually do on tablets is
very different from what businesses do on pc’s. So when
you hear the argument about tablets replacing pc’s,
it’s an apples to oranges comparison. Tablets are outselling pc’s; cell
phones are greatly outselling tablets. The primary use of both is for
entertainment, social networking, and communications, and they both do a good
job at that. Having bought an Ipad 1 and testing it
out to see what it can do, I feel it’s an interesting device and I can
see where it would particularly appeal to younger people and have a lot of
valuable uses. But I’ll just keep using my old desktop pc, thank you. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2012 MTA Micro Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbxmenu.html (509)624-7230 |
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