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The last ground breaking technology for the PC?

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Maybe I'm just too young to have witnessed some of the more ground breaking stuff in the computer industry
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You might be too young to have witnessed a time when there were decent profit margins in the business. Profit margins on computers are in the category of margins on consumer electronics at this point. That's territory where breakthroughs come a lot slower.
 
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem. Obviously, there was no internet before that, and all of the things since then have just really been technological upgrades more than breakthroughs. It sure was fun being a kid/near-teen back in the 80's.
 
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem. Obviously, there was no internet before that, and all of the things since then have just really been technological upgrades more than breakthroughs. It sure was fun being a kid/near-teen back in the 80's.
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Yep. It was neat being a "computer guy" back when it meant something. Now everyone and their dog is one.
 
Originally posted by: bluemax
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem. Obviously, there was no internet before that, and all of the things since then have just really been technological upgrades more than breakthroughs. It sure was fun being a kid/near-teen back in the 80's.
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Yep. It was neat being a "computer guy" back when it meant something. Now everyone and their dog is one.
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I don't know about that one. Everyone and their dog uses computers but that still doesn't mean they know jack sh1t about them. I guess it all depends on who you know.
 
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem. Obviously, there was no internet before that, and all of the things since then have just really been technological upgrades more than breakthroughs. It sure was fun being a kid/near-teen back in the 80's.
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I remember getting so excited when modem speeds increased. I remember thinking, "Now while I wait on this webpage to load I don't have time to go to the store and back, I can just make a sandwich." Thank god those days are gone.
 
Originally posted by: thebigdude
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem. Obviously, there was no internet before that, and all of the things since then have just really been technological upgrades more than breakthroughs. It sure was fun being a kid/near-teen back in the 80's.
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I remember getting so excited when modem speeds increased. I remember thinking, "Now while I wait on this webpage to load I don't have time to go to the store and back, I can just make a sandwich." Thank god those days are gone.
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Yeah, but some of us were around for the days where there were no modems. I know it is hard to fathom, but in a way we had to walk uphill in the snow for 10 miles to go to school at one point too...lol I guess you could use Windows for a groundbreaker here, but DOS never really bothered or aggrevated me as much as Windows so I put modems as teh winner. Think about it, if they never came up with the modems we wouldn't be having this sweet discussion now.

Come here Tina, you fat lard!
 
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem.
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My 6th grade math class was part of an experiment using a computer to teach arithmetic to elementary school kids. It was only a single TTY and an acoustic coupler modem, albeit a slow modem - 75/110 baud - but as fast as the TTY.
That was in 1965.

Obviously, there was no internet before that
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Not as you know it today, but there were plenty of private and corporate networks long before the concept of a personal computer was contemplated; I was a SNA guru for a Fortune 200 company with a worldwide network long before the PC was invented. Public networks were around too - numerous Wildcat BB's and Sierra's TSN/INN network for example. Newsgroups have been around for quite a long while too.
 
The transition from ISA to PCI was major back in the day. Also, IDE was the oooh, aaahh, back in the day. First Voodoo add-on card too. Other than that is all been faster this, faster that.......blah...blah.....blah.
 
Is it the unwillingness to take risks or make a major leap or do we simply not have the technology to manufacture things like solid state hard drives and superscalar processors that can thread programs?
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Neither. It's economics. Developing these new devices requires extensive R&D, and a CEO of a technology company is safer getting his bonuses if he keeps pushing the same obsolete technology to consumers and moving production to Malaysia or China.

Also note that from a performance perspective, desktop technology is mostly being pushed by game development and multi-media uses, which have limited deltas in terms of increasing the technological envelope. Dual and quad processor technology has been available mainstream since the 90's, yet we didn't see it on wholesale on desktops because it didn't increase frame rates for quake. Just imagine if mult-threading code technology were 5years ahead of where it's at now.

Sorry to be so cynical, but I'm sick of the computing industry being driven by single tasking game technology based on pushing pixles other than complex instructions, and moron kids putting LED fans in their computers.
 
Originally posted by: nineball9
Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The last truly "ground-breaking" advancement in computers was the modem.
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My 6th grade math class was part of an experiment using a computer to teach arithmetic to elementary school kids. It was only a single TTY and an acoustic coupler modem, albeit a slow modem - 75/110 baud - but as fast as the TTY.
That was in 1965.

Obviously, there was no internet before that
Click to expand...
Not as you know it today, but there were plenty of private and corporate networks long before the concept of a personal computer was contemplated; I was a SNA guru for a Fortune 200 company with a worldwide network long before the PC was invented. Public networks were around too - numerous Wildcat BB's and Sierra's TSN/INN network for example. Newsgroups have been around for quite a long while too.
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Right and the Army had been working with it even before then, but what I am specifically talking about is the end user environment (thus the term PC in the original post) where the modem did not really become a widely use piece of hardware until the 80's. The introduction of things like Prodigy allowed for the "information superhighway" to really begin to take off in the homes of families everywhere. It's no coincedence that I chose that to be my name. Congratulations to you on your long & heralded career in the industry though, your bank surely thanks you...lol

If anyone else is interested here is a nice rundown of the history of computers:

Computer history

In it is a section dedicated to modems, where it goes into great detail:

"Modems and networks


Modem is a term we are likely to forget soon in the digital age, but for most of us modems were where internetworking began. Modem is short for modulate-demodulate - that's where it got its name. Modems enable the digital form of matter that a computer uses to communicate by the analogue form of transmission of old style telephone systems.

There were apparently some early modems used by the US Air Force in the 1950's, but the first commercial ones were made a decade later. The earliest modems were 75 bps (or bits per second). That's about 1/750th of the speed of current modems, so they were pretty slow! But to early networking enthusiasts, modems were 300 bps. Then came 1200, and by 1989 2400 bps modems.

By 1994, domestic modems had got to 28.8 kilobits per second - which was just as well, because by then we were beginning to send more than text messages over the Internet. This was thought to be an upper limit for phone line transmissions. But along came the 56k modem, and a new set of standards, so the speeds continue to push the envelope of the capacity of the telephone system.

So much so that many of have moved on, into wireless networks, and into "broadband" systems, which allow much faster speeds. But modems made the first critical link between computers and telephones, and began the age of internetworking.

Another of the former Arpanet contractors, Robert Metcalfe, was responsible for the development of Ethernet, which drives most local area networks.

Ethernet essentially made a version of the packet switching and Internet protocols which were being developed for Arpanet available to cabled networks. After a stint at the innovative Xerox Palo Alto laboratories, Metcalfe founded a company called 3-Com which released products for networking mainframes and mini computers in 1981, and personal computers in 1982.

With these developments in place, tools were readily available to connect both old and new style computers, via wireless, cable, and telephone networks. As the networks grew, other companies such as Novell and CISCO began to develop more complex networking hubs, bridges, routers and other equipment. By the mid 1980's, everything that was needed for an explosion of internetworking was in place."

You are truly fortunate to have gone a school that actually had a PC with a modem back in the 60's, nine. That must have been quite the experience.
 
Originally posted by: Aflac
USB Missile Launcher > USB Christmas Tree
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Screw Conroe. I vote for the USB missile launcher. Surrounded by a forest of USB Christmas trees.

That's what technology is all about. 😉

On the other hand, it disturbs me that the missile launcher is on a BRITISH site. How come THEY have the technology, and the U.S. doesn't? Arms gap? Does North Korea have these?
 
Originally posted by: RegsFor instance, Aegis's physics processing unit which has done nothing so far but promised a future with no time line. Has it always been like this?
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Yeah pretty much. It's been like this for ever. Really, the last time there was any sort of really different technology introduced to the PC was when cd-roms were added and before that when hard drives were added. Other things are slow improvements over existing products. Over time, these incremental improvements add up to a whole lot. There's nothing wrong with this mode of development if you ask me. Don't hold your breath for a solid state hard drive.
 
Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Originally posted by: RegsFor instance, Aegis's physics processing unit which has done nothing so far but promised a future with no time line. Has it always been like this?
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Yeah pretty much. It's been like this for ever. Really, the last time there was any sort of really different technology introduced to the PC was when cd-roms were added and before that when hard drives were added. Other things are slow improvements over existing products. Over time, these incremental improvements add up to a whole lot. There's nothing wrong with this mode of development if you ask me. Don't hold your breath for a solid state hard drive.
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Do you think it's because there is a lack of communication or corporation between manufactures?

From chipset and semiconductor labs that make units for ASUS, Intel, XFX, epox ect...

From memory manufactures that pretty much all the big players depend on like Intel/AMD and Nvidia/ATi...

There is no consortium and all markets of the industry follow the same stagnant path because they simply depend on one another. There is just not much room for innovation. In a tug-of-war of a slowly progressing technology sector, I guess everybody becomes a winner when they all tug on the same side.

It almost reminds me of a endless potato sack race. While, just for added fun, the drunk couple tripping on themselves (in this case we can name the couple "MAC") are having a hoot trying to pick themselves up again to continue on the endless race. Doesn't make much sense to have a proprietary system that still depends on other manufactures to make their parts for them. Almost sounds like an oxymoron. MAC had the right idea, but unfortunately when the signs said north, they headed south instead.

From the responses gathered I came to this simple conclusion and it shows hope. Any one manufacture or company can create a doorway but it takes the work of others to find out where the door handle was placed.
 
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