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personal computer was the development of the graphic display terminal as the primary form of human to computer interaction. The paradigm for such interaction evolved through a number of government funded, university enacted projects. From a chain of development at MIT, the Stanford Research Laboratory and Xerox’s PARC finally emerged the Apple Lisa computer with a highly intuitive graphical user interface.

The Lisa is probably more appropriately viewed as representative of an intermediate step between mini-computers and personal computers, the scientific workstation. Such machines were, in general, mini-computers packaged with a high-definition screen. However, they were priced in the same range as a mini-computer, and couldn’t compete with personal computers. They nevertheless served a useful purpose, as many concepts found in personal computers, such as windowing interfaces, were first developed and experimented with on scientific workstations. In fact, the Apple Macintosh did emerge from this path as a true personal computer.

One innovation of scientific workstations was networking. Local networking (Ethernet) was developed at Xerox and would prove to be so forward thinking that it is still at the base of today’s local networks, not only wired, as they were at the time, but also wireless, such as Wi-Fi. Local networks would assemble into the Internet, a worldwide standard with the most successful network protocol in history, TCP/IP, the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.

With personal computers, history played differently than with mainframe and mini-computers because by the time personal computers appeared, the market players had learned from past experience and would not let one company dominate the hardware supply. So Compaq, Dell, Gateway, IBM and others shared the market. However, two companies, each in its field, ended up dominating personal computers. In microprocessors, Intel took the same overwhelming lead that had been previously taken by IBM with mainframes and by Digital Equipment with mini-computers. In software, Microsoft did the same with operating systems and key applications. In passing, let’s note that unlike IBM, which survived both the mini-computer and personal computer attacks on their business, Digital Equipment died spectacularly for having ignored the personal computer capability to replace mini-computers. Its death knell was marked by the supposed utterance of Ken Olsen, founder and CEO of Digital in 1977 that there is no reason for people to have a computer at home. When he realized his mistake, he tried to launch his own line of personal computers along the same proprietary lines as his mini-computers. It was too late; the game had changed.

Personal Electronic Devices

The fourth epoch of computers is comprised of machines that most people don’t even think of as computers. We might even say that they don’t think of them as belonging to any particular category. They are just useful day-to-day tools that have clear functions and make life easier. They are our personal electronic devices. They number in the billions, and some of them are already priced in the $20 dollar range or less (some are free), in this case 100 times cheaper than personal computers in time-adjusted dollars.

They are trusted, in that they are assumed to be always available when needed and to perform the functions they are used for flawlessly, and they are personal, in that they are portable, belong to one person, and may be secured against forbidden usage by others. As we’ll see, they have also started to expand beyond the person, as there are new forms of trusted personal devices which

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