History Of Computers The Last Ten Years

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Mitchell Snyder

Written Communication

Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College

Chris Saxild, Instructor

April 20, 2013

History of Computers: The last ten years

Think of the last ten years of your life how have your grown? How have improvements to yourself or your surroundings offered today the best version of you? The answers to those questions may surprise you. Computers have undergone a very similar transition from the computers that were to the computers we use today. We often think of computers as a monitor with a box alongside, keyboard, and mouse. The truth is computers stretch farther than most ever notice. Computers exist in watches, calculators, cars, trains, planes, and thousands of other everyday items. By definition a computer is: a programmable usually electronic device that can store, retrieve, and process data (Merriam-Webster, 2013). Though people may not know they are using them computers are impossible to avoid entirely. Computers make almost every aspect of life faster and more efficient. From your alarm clock that wakes you in the morning to the ability of catching the nightly news before you go to sleep. I will focus mainly on the advancements of those most commonly thought of in the day to day desktops and super computers.

Ten years ago computers were already in full motion taking over everything. Computers were not as flashy or small, but they did provide the stepping stone needed for progress. The fastest computer in the world in 2003 was a super computer which is several linked computers operating as one to increase overall capabilities. NEC a Japanese company creator of Earth Simulator held the title as world’s fastest computer from 2002 until mid-2004 (Top500 super computer sites, 2003). The system had 5,120 cores and was capable of 35,860 GFlops or 35.86 trillion calculations per second it also operated using 3200 KW of electricity. To put that into perspective your average desktop computer will not even operate on more than 1KW of electricity.

Desktops were very different as well a top of the line desktop of 2003 was a Dell XPS. The XPS operated on Windows XP offered a Intel Pentium 4 running at 3.4GHZ, 1GB of random-access memory (RAM), a 120GB hard drive, a DVD-R burner, and an liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor. With a cost of right around $4,000 top of the line was very costly (Brown, 2003).

The computer most commonly used is desktops comprised of several key components used to not only determine its capabilities, but also its capability to expand those capabilities. Early computers were not designed to be open ended at all as they were not thought to advance very much so hard drives and other hardware could not be upgraded. In 2003 most of those restrictions were gone and most upgrades could be done by what is called plug and play. Plug and play revolutionized how people upgraded not just hardware but software as well. By allowing the installer to just plug an upgrade in and go upgrading a computer became simple, and doing so went from a tedious task of matching all sorts of information to a task even the least inclined could accomplish. It was around that time in which computers went from very expensive items with very little variety to everyday items not only cheap, but with volumes of options from those purely for enhancement to those for customization. Major items that determine a computers power are stored in what is most commonly called a tower.

Computers of ten years ago had very few things in common with computers we use now almost every technology that was in place in 2003 is either not in use or is a backup to the main source. One of the more obvious differences is the display or monitor we use. Ten years ago most monitors were still the old fashioned cathode ray tube (CRT) the model above did boast an LCD screen, but that was not all that common for most computers people would purchase. Today not only would you not see a CRT screen on any new computer, but you would likely not even find a standard LED packed in the box. Most computers today will come with a light emitting diode (LED) screen which uses LED lighting to not only reduce power but a slimmer design. Though the LED screens use the same screen composition as a standard LCD the LED lighting provides superior color quality as well as reduced heat generation. On the high end you can even get a full 3D monitor which makes your games and other creations designed for 3D to display in full 3D.

In 2003 many computers came with standard synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM). SDRAM which operates at up to 133MHZ was for the time very fast it allowed for a single line of command to be sent as well as received. Size of RAM was also very limited you would not be likely to find a single chip of more than 1GB. The RAM of today is very much improved the fastest known as DDR3. At current clock rates of 1600MHZ not only is the memory over ten times the raw speed of the SDRAM DDR3 also offers a total of eight lines of command per cycle. What that means is that for every cycle a SDRAM stick would push through one hundred million command lines per second, and DDR3 would push through almost thirteen billion command lines a 12,800% increase in performance.

The processor or central processing unit (CPU) as it is often called is the heart of any computer everything that happens goes through it. Ten years ago the processor was one single core of a large size that created a great amount of heat. As shown in the above description a decent CPU from 2003 was 3.4GHZ today however a top notch CPU has eight processing chips on one single board each operating at 4.2GHZ. If you looked just at the simple numbers a processor today holds nearly ten times the power of the best 2003 had to offer. In reality the CPU of today is even faster than that as each core operates to run on its own meaning that multiple applications can all run at once without slowing down.

A hard drive is the storage space of the computer have made one of the biggest leaps of all in 2003 a hard drive was 120GB of magnetic disks spinning around. The disks themselves were notorious for blue screens and data corruption. Blue screen is when important operating system files become corrupt or go missing the computer will fail to start. Today though this problem is solved by use of solid state hard drives (SSD) an SSD offers a hard drive with no moving parts this allows for incredible durability as well as speed. Capacity of drives has also increased from the 120GB of the past to 4TB the equivalent of 33 hard drives available in 2003.

A video card is a device that allows a computer to render three dimensional objects such as a ball or tree without a video card many things would be impossible or take days to view. Though most commonly used to play games video cards also allow the play of movies or perform video editing a computer on its own can do some of these things, but a video card reduces the time needed to do so incredibly. In 2003 the 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 was one of the best today an ATI Radeon 7790 HD offers 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Much the same way DDR increased capabilities of RAM the same applies to RAM on a video card meaning that a card today is not eight times faster. Using the rate of doubling for every step the real power of a card today is around 256 times that of the card in 2003.

Sound cards often overlooked as not needed, but in reality a sound card makes the sound you hear as it should be without a sound card the sounds you hear from the computer may not be as they should. The only major improvement in sound cards has been the number of channels they support from mono to stereo and now today they offer a full 7.1 surround sound for a near theatre experience from your computer.

Optical drives which in 2003 consisted of DVD drives capable of playing DVD movies or data disks, and early DVD burners capable of recording onto blank DVD disks. Today you can play and burn BLU-RAY disks, and even though CD’s might not be popular through the years optical drives have been made to be backwards compatible. Optical drives have to a point peaked in performance as the disk can only be spun at a certain rate anything faster and the disk will fall to pieces.

The true core of any computer is the motherboard. From the motherboard all other hardware is connected the CPU, hard drive, RAM, video card, sound card, optical drives, And any fans or ports provided. Motherboards offer a great many options many of which are limited based on the type of computer you wish to build. For instance a small board will be cheap and offer limited slots for hardware a larger board will cost more but will offer near limitless slots for hardware. Motherboards have evolved alongside the hardware that use them getting faster and faster to accommodate the speeds of CPU’s, RAM, and video cards offering enhanced sockets, higher pin counts, or PCI express slots respectively.

Power supplies are the last major component to a computer after all you cannot turn one on without power. Though power supply units PSU’s have not been improved upon much in terms or performance they have increased drastically in the provided power. Earlier computers had lower power consumption meaning PSU’s did not have to be very high in output. The computers of today though are extreme power houses many requiring over 1KW to run safely without rebooting which can happen if the PSU you have becomes unable to provide the power needed, but power supplies today provide 1,000 watts easily.

One of the top desktops in 2013 sticking with Dell is the Dell XPS One 27 Touch. At just under $2,600 top of the line has come down in price from the 2003 best. The XPS One offers quad-core 3.5GHZ CPU and 32GB of RAM making it a far cry from the 2003 desktop of the same brand (Stafford, 2013). As for super computers a lot has changed in ten years for those who have no problem spending millions of dollars to make insane speed. The world’s fastest in 2003 was the Earth Simulator now ranked 217th on the list of 500 fastest. Currently ranked number one is Titan built by Cray Inc. which over the years has had several appearances on the list boasts a mind blowing 560,640 cores and 17,590 Tflops or 17.59 quadrillion calculation per second (Top500 super computer sites, 2003). The system also uses 8,209KW of power though it is two and a half times that of the fastest in 2003 the performance of Titan is 494 times that of Earth Simulator.

Computers sure have changed in ten short years. Costs have gone way down and performance has gone way up. We have gone from large cumbersome towers and screens to all in ones with touch screens. The last ten years truly have been a leap for computers on all levels.