Clock speed: A Provenance retrospective on two decades of personal computing
Part I: Revolution and maturation- From Altair to Apple
Abstract
For most of us, the personal computer has become an indispensable aid
to work and leisure. Many of us directly owe our jobs to personal computers
and there are few occupations which have not been affected in some way.
At home personal computers are a major educational and entertainment resource
and where connected to networks, an important communications tool. In brief,
there are few aspects of our lives which have not been touched in some way
by the personal computing revolution.
In 1995, the personal computer industry celebrated its twentieth anniversary.
It has come along way since the release of the Altair 8800 which began the
revolution and this journey is one of the great technological odysseys of
the twentieth century. In this two part article, Provenance contributor
Mark Brogan of Edith Cowan University's Department of Library and Information
Science, describes and analyses two decades of innovation in personal computing.
Mark's investigative method employs concepts derived from the theory of
innovation and microeconomics which can be used to explain the success or
failure of firms working in this dynamic and competitive industry.
Genesis
Most people think of the programmable computer as a modern innovation. But
the computer had its genesis in the concept of a programmable general purpose
calculator first developed by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace in the 1830s.
This work was pioneering in a scientific sense, but did not result in innovation[1]. For widespread application, computers required
the development of modern solid state electronics. Inventions in the form
of the transistor (1948) and the microprocessor (1971)[2]enabled the development of large digital
computers, and more recently smaller personal computers.
Since their inception in the 1970s, personal computers have been defined
by architecture and by the characteristics of size and affordability. Employing
Freeman's economic definition of innovation cited by Clark (1985) and building
on the idea of innovation as a destroyer of equilibrium, the history of
the personal computer can be thought of as commencing in 1975, with the
development of the Altair 8800 kit computer based on the Intel 8080 8 bit
microprocessor. The history of personal computers that began with the Altair has been conceptualized
by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates[3] as consisting of pre and post (IBM) PC periods.
On closer examination, it is possible to distinguish three periods characterised
by similar, but different technological trajectories, products and markets:-
Period 1975-1980. During this period product was highly differentiated
in terms of software and hardware and the market was shaped around enthusiasts
and hobbyists. The social and economic potential of the technology was not
widely appreciated. For these reasons the period 1975-1980 describes an
immature stage in the technology's development. For those who lived through
it and mastered the primitive I/O working environment, it was a kind of
'golden age'.
Period 1981-1992. A period of innovation and maturing of the technology
in which product differentiation effort shifted from microprocessors (Intel
80x86 and Motorolla 680x0 became standard), to visual computing and smaller,
more portable machines. In software, the industry moved decidedly in the
direction of business applications. Applications proliferated and the revolution
in business and society gathered pace. The personal computer joined the
mainstream.
Period 1993-. Since 1993, innovation has focused on network connectivity
and convergence with communications technology. The delivery of interactive
multimedia by computer networks and most particularly Internet has become
a major focus of product development. As network capacity expands, the requirement
for intelligent workstations is being questioned. Does this third period
foreshadow the end of the personal computer revolution as we know it?
Clock speed analyses history of the personal computer since 1975
with reference to the key innovations concepts of:-
This anniversary retrospective concludes in Part II with an analysis of
the forces that have shaped the development of the industry during two turbulent
decades of innovation and are likely to be important in its future.
I The Altair Revolution: The First Personal Computers 1975-1979
When the Altair 8800 shipped on 26 March 1975, a young Bill Gates persuaded
its skeptical makers that he could produce an interpreter BASIC for the
new machine. Gates was one of only handful of computer experts who recognized
the Altair's real significance. Outwardly, with its Intel 8080 central processing
unit (CPU), a 256 Byte RAM card and selling price of $400, the Altair seemed
a toy. But Gates recognized that key technological innovations such as the
Altair's revolutionary S100 bus, offered the potential for expandability
[4]enabling
increased power and the development of genuine functionality. With improvements
in I/O technology, the future Chairman of Microsoft Corporation declared
that the microcomputer would usher in a new and exciting era in computing.
Today it is plain that the Altair 8800[5]introduced a new technological trajectory
into the computing industry. Before the Altair, the computing industry had
been driven by the information technology paradigm of large,
expensive mainframe machines. The Altair 8800 suggested a new technological
trajectory (Nelson and Winter, 1977) and spawned a new kind of computer
industry. The essential features of the new trajectory were:
smaller machines (large, mainframe machines incorporating networks of
dumb terminals would cease to be the dominant paradigm);
increasing affordability; increasing intelligence and power (measured
in RAM, CPU speed and word size, expandability etc);
more powerful user enabling software tools (beginning with applications
development tools such as early fourth generation languages. For example,
BASIC[6] became
available for the Altair 8800 shortly after its release.)
Machines which conformed with the trajectory established by the Altair and
enjoyed early market success were the 8 bit TRS-80, Apple II and Commodore
PET. The trajectory for microcomputers changed with the arrival of 16 bit
computing in the early 1980s.
II 1981-1992 Maturation of the Technology
Nelson and Winter's contention that trajectories function as a non-market
selection method in innovation derives some credence from the shake out
which followed the introduction of the PC in 1981. The technological trajectory
established by the Altair 8800 changed with the advent of the IBM PC (1981)
and Apple Macintosh (1983). The new trajectory added the components of :-
visual computing (added by the Macintosh in 1983); and
inter-operability (added by the IBM after 1981)
Whereas the period 1975-1980 had been characterised by
considerable product differentiation, the arrival of the IBM PC in 1981 heralded
substantial movement in the opposite direction. The IBM PC introduced affordable 16 bit
computing based on an Intel 8086 microprocessor developed in 1978. The
arrival of IBM on the personal computer scene fundamentally changed the
microcomputer industry. The principal reasons for this can be found in the
market power exercised by IBM and its decision to make its operating system
(OS) non-proprietary. This system (MS DOS) was to be sourced from a third
party provider, Bill Gate's Microsoft.
At the time IBM was a highly successful mainframe vendor which controlled
a substantial part of the business computing market. It was, therefore,
favourably positioned to deliver a machine to business, and applications
development for business would henceforth be the primary focus of the software
industry. The magnitude of market power exercised by IBM was such that its
arrival in the personal computing market place would exert significant pressure
on other firms to imitate its technology or disappear. By virtue of IBM's
profile in business computing, and the likelihood of a substantial business
software base, imitation also offered the possibility of expansion into
new markets. Imitation was facilitated by the nature of IBM's OS agreement
with Microsoft which did not restrict Microsoft's rights to sell MS DOS
to other hardware manufacturers. Because of its inability to control chip
and OS distribution, success with the PC became a hydra like monster for IBM.
According to Polsson (1995) the first PC clone emerged in June, 1982. By
the mid 1980s a vibrant 'clone industry', had grown up around the PC specification and
by the end of the decade, imitation had dramatically eroded IBM's share of the market.
The release of the PC also brought about a decline in product differentiation
at hardware level in the desk top market. By the late
1980s, hardware offerings had shrunk to Intel 80x86 and Motorolla 680x0 architecture
machines. Product differentiation focussed on bundled software applications
and size. The pace of innovation also slowed. Innovation was stymied by :-
market acceptance of the PC which created a de-facto standard based
on Intel type CPUs' and MS-DOS;
the requirement for backwards compatibility with earlier generations
of software (with inter-operability, a requirement imposed by business).
In Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present, John Bayko (1992)
refers to the relative technical inferiority of the 8086 chip, compared
with its competitors -the Texas Instruments TMS 9900 and Motorolla 68000.
So why did IBM choose the 8086 series when most of the alternatives were
so much better? Bayko (1992) comments:
"Apparently IBM's own engineers wanted to use the 68000, and it was
used later in the forgotten IBM Instruments 9000 Laboratory Computer, but
IBM already had rights to manufacture the 8086, in exchange for giving Intel
the rights to it's bubble memory designs. Apparently IBM was using 8086s
in the IBM Displaywriter word processor."
An outcome from the arrival of the PC was the entrenching of a relatively
inferior technical standard for PC's which lasted a decade. In terms of
the industry, re-structuring proceeded rapidly with the disappearance of
firms which had failed to anticipate or could not respond to the impact
of the PC and the new technological trajectory. A notable survivor from
this shake out was Apple Computer.
In 1983, Apple changed the technological trajectory of microcomputing with
the introduction of an object oriented operating system (OS), totally unlike
its command line MS DOS IBM counterpart. Apple bundled its OS with Macintosh,
a machine Apple hoped would set a rival/hardware software standard to the
PC. However, in 1984-85 the machine struggled to establish market share
and seemed destined to fail. In his account of the history of the Macintosh,
Stephen Levy (1995) describes the decision making which enabled Apple to
survive in the post PC era, where others failed -Atari, Commodore, Osborne,
Wang, Apricot to name but a few. Significantly, the licensing of Apple's
OS to third party hardware manufacturers was contemplated but rejected because
(Levy, 1995, p.224)
"The experience of IBM had shown that when competitors, especially
the Japanese and Korean hardware companies, could produce clones of your
computers, most of your customers would abandon you for the cheaper goods."
Similarly, price cuts were rejected, a decision which Levy (1995, p.225)
considered in hindsight to have cost Apple market leadership and relegated
it to
"be forever the other computer, with no more than a small but significant
plurality of users."
Apple survived, firstly, because of its strategic alliance with Aldus, a
software house specialising in publishing software. From 1986, this alliance
tied the fortunes of Macintosh with another major innovation- desktop publishing.
Desktop publishing was a major innovation in printing with vertical market characteristics- it could be
used in offices to create small circulation high quality printed copy in
conjunction with a high quality printer called a LaserWriter, or in large
printing houses to produce mass circulation copy using Linotronic type machines.
Together with its object oriented interface, desktop publishing enabled
Apple to differentiate its product from its competition and enjoy Schumpeterian
type monopoly for its innovation.
Secondly, Apple survived because its object oriented OS enjoyed a sustained
period of monopoly (the technology was not successfully imitated until the
release of Windows 3.0 by Microsoft in 1990). Key questions for Apple as the decade
came to an end, were whether it could continue to change the technological
trajectory through new innovation and how long the existing object oriented
interface monopoly could be sustained.
END PART ONE
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Tom Carlson and Bob Bacus for permission to use
pictures of the Apple 512K and PCXT. Thanks to Max Lockwood for permission to use
Jim Lockwood's picture of the Altair. Thanks also to the
Obsolete Computer Museum from which these images were sourced.
ENDNOTES:
[1] The
first successful 'Analytical Engine' based on Babbage's original design
was eventually constructed at the Science Museum, London in 1990. [2] An
application in large scale integration of logic circuits based on the transistor.
[3] vide
Allison, David (1993). Bill Gates Interview. [Transcript of a Video History
Interview with Mr. William "Bill" Gates for the National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution]. At WWW: http: //www.si.edu/perspect/comphist/gates.htm
[4] Main
memory could be exapanded to 16K. [5] Shipped
on 3/26/75. [6] BASIC-
acronym for Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
REFERENCES:
Allison, David (1993). Bill Gates Interview. [Transcript of a Video History
Interview with Mr. William "Bill" Gates for the National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution]. At WWW: http: //www.si.edu/perspect/comphist/gates.htm
Bayko, John (1992). Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present. Available
at WWW: http://infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/archive/cpu_history.html
Howarth, C. (1994) The Role of Strategic Alliances in the Development of
Technology. In Technovation vol. 14 no 4 pp. 243-257
Kingston, W. (1984). The Political Economy of Innovation. Martinus Nijhoff.
The Hague. pp. 37-76.
Levy, Steven (1995) Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the
Computer that Changed Everything. New York. Penguin Books. 312p.
Lodewijks, J.K. (1990) Market Structure and Industrial Innovation. In Promotheus
vol.8 no.1, June, pp.108-128
Nelson, R and Winter, S (1974). Neoclassical vs Evolutionary Theories of
Economic Growth: Critique and Prospectus. In Economic Journal, December
1974, pp.886-905
Polsson, K. (1995) Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers.
Available at WWW: http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist.htm
Schumpeter, J. (1928). The Instability of Capitalism. In The Economics of
Technical Change. N. Rosenberg (Ed.) Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1971.
pp. 13-42
ISSN 1203-8954 - Vol.1, No.2 - March 1996 www.provenance.ca
Whereas the period 1975-1980 had been characterised by
considerable product differentiation, the arrival of the IBM PC in 1981 heralded
substantial movement in the opposite direction. The IBM PC introduced affordable 16 bit
computing based on an Intel 8086 microprocessor developed in 1978. The
arrival of IBM on the personal computer scene fundamentally changed the
microcomputer industry. The principal reasons for this can be found in the
market power exercised by IBM and its decision to make its operating system
(OS) non-proprietary. This system (MS DOS) was to be sourced from a third
party provider, Bill Gate's Microsoft.