Bill Gates claims the future of computing lies with the PC, but Davey Winder says future devices must combine form with functionality.
TThere can be little doubt that the PC has come a lo
Bill Gates claims the future of computing lies with the PC, but Davey Winder says future devices must combine form with functionality.
TThere can be little doubt that the PC has come a long way since the MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800 tested the waters in 1975, or even the fateful day 20 years ago when IBM launched its open architecture PC and started the desktop computing revolution.
The Altair, named after an episode of Star Trek called A Voyage to Altair, set the precedent for big functional boxes as the basis for PC designers to follow, although it was the IBM PC that really got the beige invasion rolling.
If you look around my office, at first glance, not a great deal has changed. Look closer and youll notice theres only one CRT monitor, the remaining displays being low-power, small-footprint LCD panels. Look closer still and youll spot the legacy-free devices on the floor, the docking stations for the subnotebook and Pocket PC devices, and even the wireless radio frequency keyboards, the optical mice with scroll wheel and the wireless networking hub.