I'm still working on this page - check back here soon for updates. In the intrim please contact me at geoff@bandonelectronics.com for any computer related questions or requirements.
I've been building computers (PC's) since the early 80's...starting with the first IBM PC "clone" system using the original 8086 CPU. In those days there was no Internet, no email, not even BBS! You were lucky to get a color display - and if you did it was a measly 16 colors! Creative released the first SoundBlaster card - 8 bit audio - amazing for the time! The CPU shown at the top left is typical of the day. A 40 pin DIP (dual inline package), 8 or 16 bits buss width, 640K RAM
Later came the 80286, 386 and 486 CPU's. With these faster parts came better graphics, large capacity hard disks etc. The CPU's use of a 16 or 32 bit buss width made this possible. Using the Socket 7 form factor you could buy an Intel or AMD CPU for the same motherboard. The PCI buss made it's debut, which gave rise to a whole range of add-in cards. The Internet and email were becoming popular with the techie crowd - but no such thing as social networking yet!
When Intel released the Pentium CPU things changed. Clock speeds went up dramatically and the P5 micro-architecture was fast! Additional instructions for graphics rendering and multi-media (SSE) opened up a whole new range of applications. 1 GB hard disks were extravagent...you were in hog heaven with a 540MB drive! 3DFX ruled the graphics world - a pair of Monster 3D-VooDoo II's in SLI was kind of the rendering world! Wolfenstien 3D in all its blocky glory!!
Things only get better as the years advance - with the Slot 1 processors adding on board cache memory and later the AGP buss for faster graphics.
A parting of ways occurs in the early to mid 2000's...Intel and AMD battle it out in court over patent infringements with the result being Intel and AMD CPU's no longer share a common platform. You buy a CPU and motherboard as a combo - Intel pushing socket 462 and later LGA775, and AMD using something entirely different. Memory speeds increased with the introduction of DDR RAM, and later DDR2 and DDR3. The PCIe buss was created for even better graphics performance.
Obviously this brief history is missing huge technologies - some blunders like RDRAM, others break throughs like SSD disks. An interesting thought - if car speeds had kept advancing the rate CPU clock speeds did we would be able to drive from San Fransisco to New York in 0.2 seconds by now!