Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 08/87 - checked

August 1987

The home computer is dead, long live the home computer: we may, however, have to learn to call it something else.

It is, perhaps, typical of many technological developments that it should go through an evolutionary process until it finds the niche or niches that suit it best. Like the Amoeba has tried everything from the Dinosaur to the Dodo to end up becoming us, the personal computer has appeared in a variety of guises. Not all of them have proved successful in evolutionary terms.

In the same way that the Amoeba grew to be us by a strange combination of mutation and pressure from outside influences, technological gizmos grow from the original immaculate conception of an odd-ball idea into fully-fledged, fully functional systems and products that fit the users' needs. And like the Amoeba, gizmos get to that end-result through a wide variety of twists, turns and blind alleys.

The process can be seen in microcosm in the world of personal computing. From that initial development of the microprocessor, getting on for twenty years ago, there has grown a stunning diversity of hardware. They range from super-computers that can guide satellites to Saturn and beyond, down to itsy-bitsy games consoles that entertain children of all ages.

One of the most spectacular species to develop over the last ten years has been the home computer, or Digitus Domesticus as we should officially refer to it. There are now grave doubts about the long term future of this breed, and long arguments amongst the cognoscenti about whether it should now be listed as an endangered species.

The alternative would be, at face value, to let it die out, though some digitologists are postulating the theory that we are now seeing that rare phenomenon, the mutation of Digitus Domesticus into something else. More precisely we may be seeing its mutation into two something else's: Digitus Domesticus Athleticarum, and Digitus Domesticus Officarum.

If we assume, as I suggested, that all developments, even those in the computer industry, come from a mixture of mutation and external pressure, then the home computer has seen its fair share of both. Development of some sort was therefore inevitable. Predicting the results cannot be so easily stated however.

Digitus Domesticus grew suddenly and dramatically out of the root ancestor, Digitus Individulum. This was typified by such sub-species as the Altair and Imsai machines, boxes the size of a PC/AT and no power worth speaking of in modern terms. Truly the Amoeba of the race.

It was a young Mr Sinclair who discovered one of the first examples of the new mutation. Not being trained in the giving of silly Latin names, he catalogued it alpha-numerically as species ZX80. Mutation continued quickly, for he soon catalogued a new and more successful variant, the ZX81.

These species had developed separately from the specialised games consoles, Dometesticus Athleticarum, which only display some characteristics of the overall Digitus species. Instead the new sub-species showed all the fundamental attributes of the Digitus strain, except in miniature.

They proved to be instantly popular pets and playmates for a wide range of people, from those who were happy playing games through to those that really fancied their chances (and often emphatically proved themselves) as programmers and general computer luminaries. When that nice Mr Sinclair discovered his third and most successful Mutation, the Spectrum, the sub-species seemed set for an established future.

Since then, however, the external pressures that work with mutations to create new developments have altered quite markedly. For example, there are those that would argue that one of the major external pressures which lead to the success of Digitus Domesticus in the first place was itself an aberration. There are also those that would take the opposite view and try to show that mutation is still taking place.

The external pressure came from the users themselves. There was, for a time, a lot of excitement amongst people about these small and cheap machines. This lead to a rare phenomenon amongst the natives of this country: they rushed out and bought a technological gizmo without any real idea of what it could do, or why they wanted it. There was, certainly for a time, evidence of an implicitly laudable justification from parents, who wanted their children to become `computer literate'. This, though understandable, has always flown in the face of the true evolutionary path for the species, the eventual development of Digitus Empatheticum, the `people literate' computer.

One line of argument has it that this phenomenon has been a temporary and passing aberration, and that it is now passing, closely followed by Digitus Domesticus itself. This would leave the home front free to be populated where it may be by the more specialised and more sophisticated mutations of the games machines, Digitus Athleticarum crossed with Domesticus.

The other line, however, would have it that the pressure has not gone away but has grown, matured and intensified. This has lead to further mutation, though not in an immediately obvious area. Instead of Domesticus evolving further to meet the pressure, new versions of Digitus Officarum, the desk top business computer, have evolved downwards instead.

To some extent, this has occurred because the nature of the pressure itself has altered. There is now as much demand for home computing facilities from parents on their own behalf as there has ever been on behalf of their children. The increasing pressure from those working from home, for example, is just one example of what is causing the new evolution. Coupled to the capabilities of the technology to make Digitus Officarum at Digitus Domesticus prices, it has led to a new mutation of the sub-species, Domesticus Officarum, as seen by the likes of Alan Sugar.

On balance, it would appear that Domesticus is all-but extinct in its original form. But life goes on, and in this case, that means in the form of Domesticus Officarum. It is already possible to postulate further evolutions, such as Digitus Officarum Pocketaris. All it needs is the right kind of pressure to be applied.

end