Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 04/86 - checked

April 1986

One hundred issues; it doesn't sound many does it, yet it is something over eight years that this august organ has been charting the course of micro history. And in that time, what has it seen?

Well, sad to say, one thing it has observed is the demise of fun. It had to happen, of course. There was no way that the personal computer business could ever keep up its lunatic excesses of the early days of people like Spangles Cary, Kerr Borland, Kit Spencer, Martin Underwood and Robin Woods.

They were fun people in fun times; the whole PC business was built on the lunacy of its complete improbability. It was such an unlikely thing to happen, even for those that could predict its occurrence from technology trends. But the happening created a major industry and a major force in business, commerce, science, technology and, by no means least, the home.

In so doing, of course, things had to change. The fun has slowly gone out of the personal computer business, to be replaced by the smart suits and elegant accents of the professionals. They have come from industries such as canned drinks, and a canned drink hasn't any soul, somehow. As some have found, a personal computer can't be sold in the same way.

All this has been observed, reported and commented upon within the pages of this august organ during its 100 issues. But what of the future, what wonders will occur to fill these pages during the next 100 appearances?

One thing that seems certain, there will be no fun. The users seem to be dividing into two distinct camps, serious business, and the rest. Unfortunately for the fun lovers, it is going to be the serious business users that hold sway for some time to come.

The reason?, Well, the market that all the manufacturers have been after for so long, the big corporate users, is now taking off. That in itself would be interesting enough for the average computer maker but there is more, for this development is occurring when the `traditional' PC business market is declining. The industry has used up the individuals who have wanted to buy a personal computer.

What is more, unlike a canned drink, a personal computer isn't consumed that quickly. There are still people happily achieving what they want to achieve on Commodore Pets, North Star Horizons and, most of all, Apple IIs. They may like the idea of a new machine but they are unlike to buy one, especially just when they've got the software running right.

The corporate market is therefore going to become extremely important over the next few years. That, in turn, is going to force changes onto the manufacturers as they rush to fulfill the demand. Among the things that PCW is likely to see over the coming 100 issues, therefore, is a trend towards bigger overall systems that are generally more expensive. This will occur because the corporate market has generally bigger requirements than the individual user, and wants its systems to work. This means they have to be well-engineered and reliable. That, in two words, costs money.

We are also likely to see a fundamental shift of emphasis away from PC hardware onto the communication hardware and software as the centre of everything that is considered `sexy' in computer technology.

The box on the end of the line will become far less important to the corporate user than the line itself. A good, working network of Pets will be much better than any number of poorly connected ATs. Network systems, multi-user systems and their relevant operating software will be more significant that any stand-alone machine (especially if it won't interface to any standard network).

The boxes themselves are going to get more powerful in general, though there is the opportunity for lower power, dedicated task machines that I have alluded to before. The general trend towards more power is one of the inevitabilities of technology it would seem. More powerful chips are being produced, and because of the economics of semiconductor production, they end up costing the same as earlier, less powerful devices. So the end user gets them in a box whether they are needed or not. The corporate market is likely to need them however. These are BIG users in more ways than one and will consume as much memory and processing power as is available.

But that power will not be used just for ever-bigger spreadsheets, or more complex and comprehensive integrated packages. Instead the power will be utilised in what advertising people love call `below-the-line' functions: the bits the user doesn't directly see.

Two areas are going to become particularly important over the coming few years. One is operating systems generally. MS-DOS is coming to the limits of its usefulness in its currently available forms and, unless factors such as the 640K byte limit are removed or modified, it will be found too restrictive for many corporate users.

It is also not desperately well-suited to the world of larger, inter-communicating systems where the complexities of mixing file and record locking systems with accurate control of transaction processing between multiple processors and physical file systems require considerable operating system power. There could therefore, at last be the emergence of Unix as a major operating system, as well as networking software systems such as Novell's NetWare, which lots of companies seem to swear by already.

The other area where the corporate users will consume the power below the line is in operator front-end systems. Here, the users will find they need to know nothing about the computers or the applications program. All they do is follow the on-screen instructions and enter the required data as the system demands. This will be much more use than all the icon-oriented graphics front-ends put together to the corporate systems manager.

And in the home market? God knows what might happen there. Companies such as Sinclair, Acorn and Commodore have all fallen foul of trying to sell computers as consumer items. As with the business market, they have used up the customers. The games machine business will tick over gently but the next development will probably be in smart `things' such as ...well, anything you can think of, really. If they make money out of computerised pets this year, then anything might happen here over the next 100.

end