For compatibility, look across and not down

The PC industry has always had an obsession with compatibility. Indeed, the first question many people asked about computers was "Is it PC compatible?". A fair question at the time, as most software was written for the IBM PC and would not run on other systems.

Over time, our notion of "PC compatible" has changed. Most people today think of a Windows PC as "an IBM PC compatible PC" when in fact the hardware has changed so much that any current PC is not "PC compatible". (You cannot attach any device from an original IBM PC, including the keyboard, display, or adapter card.)

Compatibility is important -- not for everything but for the right things.

The original IBM PCs were, of course, all "PC compatible" (by definition) and the popular software packages (Lotus 1-2-3, Wordstar, WordPerfect, dBase III) were all "PC compatible" too. Yet one could not move data from one program to another. Text in Wordstar was in Wordstar format, numbers and formulas in Lotus 1-2-3 was in Lotus format, and data in dBase was in dBase format.

Application programs were compatible "downwards" but not across". That is, they were compatible with the underlying layers (DOS, BIOS, and the PC hardware) but not with each other. To move data from one program to another it was necessary to "print" to a file and read the file into the destination program. (This assumes that both programs had the ability to export and import text data.)

Windows addressed that problem, with its notion of the clipboard and the ability to copy and paste text. The clipboard was not a complete solution, and Microsoft worked on other technologies to make programs more compatible (DDE, COM, DCOM, and OLE). This was the beginning of compatibility between programs.

The networked applications and the web gave us more insight to compatibility. The first networked applications for PCs were the client/server applications such as Powerbuilder. One PC hosted the database and other PCs sent requests to store, retreive, and update data. At the time, all of the PCs were running Windows.

The web allowed for variation between client and server. With web servers and capable network software, it was no longer necessary for all computers to use the same hardware and operating systems. A Windows PC could request a web page from a server running Unix. A Macintosh PC could request a web page from a Linux server.

Web services use the same mechanisms for web pages, and allow for the same variation between client and server.

We no longer need "downwards" compatibility -- but we do need compatibility "across". A server must understand the incoming request. The client must understand the response. In today's world we ensure compatibility through the character set (UNICODE), and the data format (commonly HTML, JSON, or XML).

This means that our computing infrastructure can vary. It's no longer necessary to ensure that all of our computers are "PC compatible". I expect variation in computer hardware, as different architectures are used for different applications. Large-scale databases may use processors and memory designs that can handle the quantities of data. Small processors will be used for "internet of things" appliances. Nothing requires them to all use a single processor design.