I bought my first computer in 1987. It was an IBM PC XT 286 with an Intel 80286 processor and 20 megabytes of storage on the hard drive. I owned a small business at the time that was involved in the New England electronics market selling equipment to the mini computer makers. Working on the manufacturing and repair of the electronics was much easier for me than understanding how to use the damn things in every day business.
The total price for the machine and a package of Computer Associates software for inventory, billing, accounts payable, receivable and financial accounting was about $8,000. I can still remember the salesman telling me that the hard drive would be more than I would need in my life time. Of course it wasn't long before I owned a 386, 486 and then Pentium machines. As my confidence grew I began to go to computer flea markets and pick up parts and start to assemble my own PC clones. That is not entirely true since most of the expertise was provided by my brother in-law or my son.
In any event, at one show I saw my first gigabyte of hard drive, and I regaled my friends with the story of what the IBM salesman told me. The unit was available for around $1,000 and I thought that soon the price would come down and I would have one for my own.
All of this came back to me yesterday as I went down to Circuit City to buy an external hard drive. Recently I have been consuming large amounts on my internal drive because of my love for Itunes. A year or so ago, my gadget loving friend Bob told me that getting an Ipod would change every aspect of my interest in music.
Sure enough Bob was right. I got a Nano last year for my birthday and nothing about music has been the same since. I down loaded the software and ever since I have been adding to my collection. Just recently, another friend, who I introduced to Itunes, graciously allowed me access to his over 1700 cd collection. I have been at it for three weeks and have gotten about half way through. At this point I have over 6500 songs on my machine.
To put this into perspective, in order to accommodate each song averaging about 4 megabytes of storage for each song, I would need 1400 of the first machine that I bought. The amount storage taken up by these tunes totals about 22 gigabytes and it was starting to noticeably slow my machine. Even with a gig of RAM and a 3.2 gigahertz microprocessor, I am not able to copy a Cd, play the tune and also surf the net at the same time. My how my expectations have been raised!
So down the store I go to get some more storage. Every time I go there I am astonished. The first thing that strikes me is that virtually without exception, not one of the items in the entire store was invented when I was a schoolboy. The math of the pricing of the new external storage is what struck me the most yesterday. I ended up buying an I/O Magic 250 gigabyte external hard drive for $139 plus tax. Let's recap. The first gigabyte of hard drive I ever saw was a $1000 and yesterday I bought 250 gigabyte for 56 cents per gig.
When I opened the box I was disturbed to find that there wasn't a manual with the unit. I thought this strange until I went to the company website and read that most of their units come without one. The basic reason is you don't need one. The website said if you have a problem just give us a call. I didn't need to call because I just plugged it into the computer and into the wall and it worked perfectly.
Of course a revolution in the price and reliability are not the only changes in the computer business. The New England market used to consist of over 10 million square feet of mini computer manufacturing capability in the early seventies to early nineties. That item no longer exists and that space for the most part is devoted to something else.
I can remember attending a business function where a president of one of the leading mini computer firms commented in his address that the personal computer was a passing fad. Like the manufacturing buildings, he is doing something else now. One can only wonder what other changes lay ahead?
