A brief history of computing 1960-2030
Jonathan Wagstaffe, one of our UK & Ireland Cisco Champions from Project Vision, gives us an insight into his ‘History of Computing’…
The Sixties – The Mainframe
The sixties was the decade of the mainframe. Think of all those James Bond movies where in the background sits a computer about the size of a wardrobe, with two tape reels spinning on the front of it. Mainframes were expensive to run, and needed their own special room and water cooling. On the other hand, we did use them to get to the moon. Try doing that on your iPad.
The Seventies – The Minicomputer.
A computer the size of a domestic washing machine, the minicomputer could probably have handled your tax return at a push. This incredible miniaturization was a result of the invention of the transistor and the first integrated circuits. People marvelled at how such computing power could be delivered by such a small device. But people also marvelled at brown flared trousers…
The Eighties – The PC
Intel brought us their version of the silicon chip, and 1981 IBM used it to bring us the desktop PC. Soon Bill Gates announced his intention to put a PC on every desk and in every home. Unfortunately he didn’t offer to pay for it all. The PC was the automation marvel of the age, with spreadsheets replacing rows of clerks writing in ledgers. However, transfer of information between PCs consisted of pressing an eject button and carrying a floppy disk to another PC, and so it wasn’t long before….
The Nineties – The Network.
People connected PCs together. Then people got excited and wanted to connect offices together, and then nations together. A great time to be selling connections, switches, and routers.
The Naughties – The Internet.
Continuing the theme of technologies that had emerged in the previous decade now going mainstream, the World Wide Web and email brought the wonder of the internet to millions, and a place at the opening ceremony of London 2012 to Tim Berners-Lee. Salespeople who had been forced to annoy people one at a time by cold calling in the 90s now could annoy thousands at once with spam.
Today – The Cloud
The ubiquity of mobile devices and the increasing demands of security and performance have brought us to our current computing model with the cloud being in all our lives. Acceptance of the cloud has been driven by three things:
- A wealth of consumer apps getting people used to using cloud technology without realizing they were doing it
- The ability of small businesses to access technology which had been the preserve or large business, via pay as you go models.
- Diversity of end point (smartphone, tablet, PC, etc), coupled with the need to access your apps and data from any endpoint you choose.
There are now more mobile phones in the world than there are toothbrushes – a gross but sobering fact. So, now that all the people are connected, what else can we connect? What technology trend has emerged in this decade and will clearly be ubiquitous in the next decade? Well….
The Twenties – Things
The Internet of Things is building out quickly, and the twenties will be when this becomes normal rather than novelty. We know this pattern from decades past. If you think the Internet of Things is everywhere now, just think for a moment about the untapped opportunity. Cisco estimates up to 50 billion connected devices by 2020 (It’s about 15 billion now). We’ve all heard of smart cities and driverless cars, but the list is as long as your imagination. I have a friend who awaits the smart whisky bottle – but it’s already here! My wife is looking forward to the smart bath. That’s here too! The challenge for all of us today is to decide where we will play on the huge new playing field. Exciting times indeed.
