Getting old

Predicting the future of technology is difficult. Some technologies endure, others disappear quickly. Linux is twenty years old. Windows XP is ten, although bits of the Windows code base go back to Windows NT (and possibly Windows 3.1 or even MS-DOS). Yet the "CueCat", Microsoft "Bob", and IBM "TopView" all vanished in short order.

One aspect of technology is easy to predict: our systems will be a mix of old and new tech.

Technology has always been a mix of new and old. In the Eldar Days of PCs (the era of the Apple II, CP/M, and companies named Cromemco and Northstar), computer systems were blends of technology. Computers were powered by microprocessors that were low-end even in the day, to reduce the cost. We stored data on floppy disks (technology from the minicomputer age), on cassette tapes (a new twist on old, cheap hardware), and some folks used paper tape (tech from the 1960s).

Terminals were scrounged keyboards and displays, often the display was a television with 40 characters of uppercase characters per line. The better-off could afford systems with built-in equipment like the Radio Shack TRS-80 and the Commodore PET.

The software was a mix. Most systems had some form of Microsoft BASIC built into ROM; advanced systems allowed for the operating system to be loaded from disk. CP/M was popular and new to the microcomputer era, but it borrowed from DEC's operating systems. Apple had their DOS, Heathkit had their own HDOS but also supported CP/M and the UCSD p-System.

We all used BASIC. We knew it was from the timesharing era, despite Microsoft's extensions. When not using BASIC, we used assembly language and we knew it was ancient. A few brave souls ventured into Digital Research's CBASIC, FORTH, or a version of Tiny C.

The original IBM PC was a mix of off-the-shelf and new equipment. The keyboard came from the earlier IBM System/23, albeit with different labels on the keys. The motherboard was new. The operating system (MS-DOS) was new, but a clone of CP/M.

Our current modern equipment uses mixed-age technologies. Modern PCs have just now lost the old PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports (dating back to the 1987 IBM PS/2) and the serial and parallel ports (dating back to the original 1981 IBM PC with the same connectors and earlier with larger, more rugged connectors).

Apple has done a good job at moving technology forward. The iPhone and iPad devices have little in the way of legacy hardware and software. Not bad for a company whose first serious product had a built-in keyboard but needed a television to display 24 rows of 40 uppercase characters.