When I started working with personal computers in the early / mid 70’s, there was no such thing as an operating system. Bill Gates was probably a nerd in grade school. Woz and Jobs were also just two kids. Everything in personal computing was programmed in machine code binary, octal, and hex. A box to contain the computer had not even been necessary or invented. A person had to acquire (purchase) all the separate physical electronic hardware needed to create the computer system from the CPU chip. The CPU chip was the magic spark. The package computer did not yet exist. I programmed eight LEDs to flash in various sequences and delays, instructed by binary code.
It has been quite a ride for me, getting in on the ground floor. A lot of wonderful computer hardware, applications and operations have grown in the nearly forty years since then.
One of my early goals was to have my own packaged computer. A “box” that I would own and be able to do whatever I wanted. That consists of a built up system with power supply and components all contained in a nice case. Mine was an Imsai 8080. The problem has always been that the hardware was changing and improving so fast, it was awful hard to have the latest and greatest hardware. I don’t want to imagine what I have spent for electronic components in the hardware “arms” race.
I have fallen back to the good old days on occasion with tiny Parallax “stamp” computers and recently “Strawberry Pie”. If you’re not a fellow computer geek you have no idea of what I am writing. That’s OK. Let’s just say they are very small special purpose computers at very low cost and no case or power supply, just a circuit board with a few parts, just like back in day one.
I have to admit I love the hardware. It is why I am also a ham radio enthusiast. In the beginning of this adventure the great discussions were about the choice of doing something (computing logic) in hardware or in the code. Before the micro processor there were hardware digital “gates” that could be assembled into logic decision paths. They were very fast but once assembled they were difficult to impossible to change. In software all that is necessary is to rewrite the instructions, but in those days code executed (ran) a lot slower than the same thing in hardwired hardware. No hardware to change was the benefit of code. Eventually as processors got faster, software won over hardwired logic gates. That is what the “stamp” computer does today, digital logic by instruction.
The latest revolution of large scale computing is to not even think about the hardware. Personal hardware is archaic and a thing of the past. The internet connectivity has done away with the need for a personal box full of computing hardware. Not entirely though, as the now “sealed box” computer is still required as a terminal for access to the new virtual system.
The computers in the cloud are real hardware but are seen and accessed and configured as virtual “boxes in the cloud” that can be created at the click of a mouse. The software program and the deliverable output have become the goal with no necessary ownership of the hardware. The computer hardware is now just a service that can be turned off and on at will. I am not complaining, just observing the trend.
I now have a virtual computer at my command that I can create, and ask for as much hardware power as I want. I can load an operating system of my choice, and run whatever application I desire or create myself. I can turn it off when I am done and turn it back on the next time I need to use it. Just like a private PC setting alongside me.
Or… with a few more mouse clicks I can let it run 24/7 as a server, accessible by anyone in the world connected to the internet. It can change its own configuration instantly as needed to service the number users who are accessing it. We have come a long way from an eight bit processor chip, baby.
I believe the clouds forte’ is mostly internet activity. It is a communication use where I don’t want to think of the hardware and its upkeep. It’s just a service to run my store software or my blog.