The revulsion of old equipment

As a newbie programmer back in the dawn of the PC era, I joined other PC programmers in a general disdain of the IBM mainframes. We were young and arrogant. We were a elitist in our view of hardware: we considered the PC sleek and modern, the mainframe to be antiquated. Most of all, we looked on mainframe hardware as monstrous. Everything about mainframes was a grotesque, oversized ancestor of PC hardware, from the display terminals (the IBM 3270 was a behemoth) to the processor units (refrigerators) to even the cables that connected devices. Yes they worked, and yes people used them but I could not imagine anyone wanting to use such equipment.

We were also elitist in our view of software, but that is not important for this post.

Much of the IBM mainframe was designed in the System/360, the first general-purpose computer from IBM. It was introduced in 1964, seventeen years prior to the IBM PC in 1981. In that time, advances in technology shrank most devices, from processors to disk drives. The IBM PC was very different from the IBM System/360.

Yet the span from that first PC to today is almost twice the seventeen year span from System/360 to PC. Advances in technology have again shrank most devices.

Today's newbie programmers (young and possibly arrogant) must look on the aged PC design with the same revulsion that I felt for mainframe computers.

PC enthusiasts will point out that the PC has not remained static in the past thirty-plus years. Processors are more powerful, memory is significantly larger, disk drives have more capacity while becoming smaller, and the old serial and parallel connectors have been replaced with USB.

All of these are true, but one must still admit that, compared to tablets and smart phones, PCs are large, hulking monstrosities. And while they work and people use them, does anyone really want to?

The PC revolution happened because of four factors: PCs were cheap, PCs were easier to use than mainframes, the "establishment" of mainframe programmers and operators set up a bureaucracy to throttle requests from users, and PCs got the job done (for lots of little tasks).

Since that revolution, the "establishment" bureaucracy has absorbed PCs into the fold.

The tablet revolution sees tablets and smart phones that are: cheap, easier to use that PCs, outside of the establishment bureaucracy, and capable of getting the job done (for lots of little tasks).

Tablets are here to stay. The younger generation will see to that. Businesses will adopt them, just as they adopted PCs. In time, the establishment bureaucracy may absorb them.

PCs will stick around, too, just as mainframes did. They won't be the center of attention, though.