2011/08/28
lessons from the PC era
It’s interesting to consider the history of the PC and learn some lessons. The landscape of computing that we have now resulted from a sandwiching effect of cheaper and cheaper scientific workstations and more and more powerful consumer hobby kits (some say toys). By the mid 1980s, this trend was recognized and efforts were begun from both sides to capture the computing market. Today we know that the hobby kit lineage won, and as a result, most workstation companies eventually folded in the 2000s, though they survived for a while by clinging to the enterprise. (Incidently, IBM and HP did not, because they were large and diversified enough to do something about it.)
But this is not the whole story.
(Read the article)
