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COMPUTERS: MACHINES OF THE DECADE

You Say You Want a Revolution

By the middle 1980s the social revolution envisioned twenty years earlier by the pioneers of the small computer was in full swing. In 1981 some 750,000 personal computers were estimated to be in use in American homes; 39.4 million computers were shipped between 1984 and 1988. In 1984 alone Americans bought $37.6 million worth of computer software for home use, about two-thirds of it in the "entertainment" category—that is, computer games. By the end of 1982, 250 different computer games were available, and some $2 billion worth were sold. In the mid 1980s home computers came in three types. For less than $100, one could buy a game-only computer made by Atari or Sega. It hooked up to the family television set, which acted as the monitor, and the programs came as plug-in cartridges or tape cassettes similar to those used in tape recorders. For less than $500, the home user could buy a computer that purported to serve the serious user—a Timex Sinclair 1000, a Commodore VIC-20, or an Atari 400—but these machines were normally upgraded game computers with simple programs. For __BODY__,000 to $2,000, the more serious home user could buy an Apple II, an IBM Personal Computer, or a Radio Shack TRS-80 with a keyboard, a monitor, and as much as thirty-two kilobytes of RAM (random-access memory). For another $750 or so a printer could be attached, making the computer useful as a word processor. Those adventuresome computer users who were willing to spend $100 for a telephone modem were the trail-blazers. They could connect with bulletin board services (BBSs) and acquire information—or, more usually, exchange ideas with other computer users. The BBSs were free (except for the cost of a long-distance call, if the BBS was in a different area) and often allowed pseudonymous subscriptions. Commercial services, such as CompuServe and The Source, charged a monthly fee for a certain number of hours of use and certain services; additional time on-line or more specialized services carried extra charges. In 1981 180,000 modems were in American homes; by 1988 there were 10.9 million.

Machine of the Year

On 3 January 1983 a computer appeared on the cover of Time as the Machine of the Year. The magazine was saluting the personal computer's potential rather than its accomplishments. Clearly, the vision of the "cyberpunks" of the late 1960s and early 1970s had captured the attention, if not the imagination, of the average American. The challenge was to find uses for the computer that took advantage of the machines' unique capabilities and could not be accomplished more efficiently by traditional means (such as the typewriter or calculator). As adults struggled to justify their purchase of the devices, their children played computer games and came to regard computing as a routine part of life. Through such popular game programs as Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers, children developed an interest in computer hardware and in the programming routines that told the computer what to do. Bit, byte, RAM, ROM (read-only memory), CPU (central processing unit), and software were standard words in the vocabulary of elementary-school children that baffled their elders.

Uses

Meanwhile, the older set sought a practical use for computing. The typewriter industry was the first to feel the impact as word-processing programs offered erratic typists an efficient way to correct mistakes. For home finances and record keeping there was VisiCalc, an early spreadsheet program that allowed nearly instant calculation according to formulas determined by the user. Software manufacturers struggled, with mixed success, to provide other practical uses for home computers. Thousands of programs were introduced each year in the mid 1980s, most of uncertain utility. The determined user could store recipes, inventory household items, learn languages, and fill in the blanks on prepared legal forms, such as simple wills and bills of sale, using computer programs, though often it was more efficient to accomplish these tasks using traditional means. The uses that established the computer among middle-class families as a required household item were basic ones—writing, ciphering, and placating the children, who amused themselves for hours on end with digital games.

Incompatibility

A serious drawback to the computers of the early 1980s was that different brands, or even different models produced by the same company, were often incompatible. Because there was no clear standard of operating software, ambitious computer companies, notably Sharp, marketed computers that would only run software provided by the manufacturer. Thus, if one bought a Sharp computer, one had to buy programs from Sharp, as well—a situation that frustrated experienced users, who may, for example, have had one type of computer at home and another at the office. Software incompatibility also served to add to the confusion of novices, who failed to understand the nuances of hardware architecture. As Microsoft Corporations's MS-DOS and Apple's Macintosh became established as the two major operating systems, customers and software producers insisted that computers be able to run any software written for one or the other. General users were attracted to later-generation machines and software that required only simple typing skills and intuitive responses to "icons"—pictures on the monitor screen that represented sets of complicated instructions to the machine; the instructions could be executed by using a mouse (a small device that sat on the desktop next to the keyboard) to position a cursor (pointer) over the icon and clicking a button. By the end of the 1980s the term user friendly had become not only a merchandising slogan but also a basic principle of computer hardware and software design.