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Hi
Again sorry about the quite large gap in time since the last part of this blog story thing. So in the concluding part I am going to go through the history of “Modern computing” and, the apple mania that as swept the land.
At the start of the sixties IMB was the largest company in the world, and virtually the only computer company. Which is quite amusing considering some IBM executive once said “I predict the world will eventually need 5 computers.” They thought at this time that maybe NASA or the USA gov would have one and that was about it. The idea that even ordinary families would have a computer wasn't really taken seriously.
Until about 1976 when two computer scientists named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, built and sold a small computer out of a garage in California. That they named Apple. And it was a reasonable success, showing there was a genuine demand for a computer of the people. IBM thought this was pretty absurd, but still needed to put a competitor of some description out to challenge Apple.
So in 1981 the IBM PC came out. And to be honest by modern standards it was pretty dreadful. There was no mouse just a keyboard, so you couldn't click anything as there was nothing to click. So if you wanted to see any file, you had to type in it's ridiculously long name into the command line operating system. And then you couldn't start moving files without hours of typing away. But besides these massive faults it still sold in the millions and IBM remained the big computerised cheese.
Enter now some groovy Californians who saw the future. These Californians worked for a photo copying company perhaps the most famous the Xerox corporation. Who had a research centre called the Palo Alto research centre in California. There they postulated the idea (that they couldn't build) of what we would call the modern desktop. In this idea the screen was a big box with these weird things called “Icons” that things called “mice” clicked on. And when you clicked on this Icon with your mouse you would be inside another box. You could have pictures, music and even video. At the time that this was being thought up mid to late eighties this seemed like a impossible dream. That many dismissed as mad, in England around this time type writers were still in use!
However Apple thought they could build it and in the year of 1984 Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs brought out the Apple Macintosh computer. It was everything these people at Xerox had dreamed of, it was the desktop that knocked the clunky command line for six. It was a literal overnight success being bought by the famous Hitchhikers guide Douglas Adams. Understandably IBM was worried and needed to bring out another competing product. However instead of creating another command line system, they got a unknown called Bill gates, who owned a obscure company called Microsoft to set the software for them. While they continued to make the box it went in. So Bill and his team got to work by buying out right a operating system, and then changing it slightly before giving it to IBM. After this Mr Gates went to all the other computer makers and got the rights to putting his software in there machines. The resulting computers were called IBM compatibles. At this point IBM was surmounted as the biggest computer company by Microsoft as they had the rights to the important software systems, meanwhile Apple struggled on against Microsoft and Mr Gates.
I am now going to miss a brief period where Steve Jobs left Apple and return to the story as he too returned to Apple.
In 1996 Steve Jobs came back to Apple after his new company NEXT was merged with his original company Apple. Shortly after his return Apple developed a new operating system 0S X. In the years leading up to the millennium and beyond it is not hard to see that Apple as taken over with it's ever inventive ideas . They have of course brought out the train of ipods and itunes store and the more recent iphone. But perhaps the most famous Apple product from this era is the original imac in it's famous “Bondi blue”. Which was developed with help from a one Johnny Ive from Britain. Among the many features that made this Computer significant, was that it used the standard USB ports that all computers now use. As seen to the right
So that is I think pretty much the history of the computer to about today. I apologise if I have omitted anything.
Until about 1976 when two computer scientists named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, built and sold a small computer out of a garage in California. That they named Apple. And it was a reasonable success, showing there was a genuine demand for a computer of the people. IBM thought this was pretty absurd, but still needed to put a competitor of some description out to challenge Apple.
So in 1981 the IBM PC came out. And to be honest by modern standards it was pretty dreadful. There was no mouse just a keyboard, so you couldn't click anything as there was nothing to click. So if you wanted to see any file, you had to type in it's ridiculously long name into the command line operating system. And then you couldn't start moving files without hours of typing away. But besides these massive faults it still sold in the millions and IBM remained the big computerised cheese.
Enter now some groovy Californians who saw the future. These Californians worked for a photo copying company perhaps the most famous the Xerox corporation. Who had a research centre called the Palo Alto research centre in California. There they postulated the idea (that they couldn't build) of what we would call the modern desktop. In this idea the screen was a big box with these weird things called “Icons” that things called “mice” clicked on. And when you clicked on this Icon with your mouse you would be inside another box. You could have pictures, music and even video. At the time that this was being thought up mid to late eighties this seemed like a impossible dream. That many dismissed as mad, in England around this time type writers were still in use!
However Apple thought they could build it and in the year of 1984 Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs brought out the Apple Macintosh computer. It was everything these people at Xerox had dreamed of, it was the desktop that knocked the clunky command line for six. It was a literal overnight success being bought by the famous Hitchhikers guide Douglas Adams. Understandably IBM was worried and needed to bring out another competing product. However instead of creating another command line system, they got a unknown called Bill gates, who owned a obscure company called Microsoft to set the software for them. While they continued to make the box it went in. So Bill and his team got to work by buying out right a operating system, and then changing it slightly before giving it to IBM. After this Mr Gates went to all the other computer makers and got the rights to putting his software in there machines. The resulting computers were called IBM compatibles. At this point IBM was surmounted as the biggest computer company by Microsoft as they had the rights to the important software systems, meanwhile Apple struggled on against Microsoft and Mr Gates.
I am now going to miss a brief period where Steve Jobs left Apple and return to the story as he too returned to Apple.
In 1996 Steve Jobs came back to Apple after his new company NEXT was merged with his original company Apple. Shortly after his return Apple developed a new operating system 0S X. In the years leading up to the millennium and beyond it is not hard to see that Apple as taken over with it's ever inventive ideas . They have of course brought out the train of ipods and itunes store and the more recent iphone. But perhaps the most famous Apple product from this era is the original imac in it's famous “Bondi blue”. Which was developed with help from a one Johnny Ive from Britain. Among the many features that made this Computer significant, was that it used the standard USB ports that all computers now use. As seen to the right
So that is I think pretty much the history of the computer to about today. I apologise if I have omitted anything.
Thanks for reading
Kyle
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