DejaVu,

I like the way you think. Look at my post towards the top of this thread

I’ll agree that the release of the Voodoo 3DFX card was the first quality 3D accelerator, but I think a lot of credit should go to Jez San.

What do you mean you don’t know who Jez San is??

Jez San programmed his first game, Skyline Attack, on the Commodore 64, at the age of 18.  In 1986, he wrote StarGlider, which many will recognise as one of the first polygon based games in existence.  The success of StarGlider (readily available on Abandonware sites) financed his company, Argonaut Software.  He was involved in the development of the Super FX chip, (one of the best selling 3D and RISC microprocessors,) used in the Super Nintendo to enable the creation of games like StarFox (StarWing in some countries).  Argonaut software also developed Virtua Fighter.  The first in the 3D fighting genre.  They also developed the Blazing Render (or BRender) system, (play Creature Shock to see what this engine was capable of,) along with the first hardware 3d accelerator for PC’s.  They fully acknowledged then that it probably wouldn’t be the most popular product of its type, but hoped that other companies would carry on developing such products, much in the same way that Creative first brought out the Sound Blaster, and other companies (like Gravis) came out with better products which spurred on the furtherment of the industry.

StarGlider, Blazing Render, Virtua Fighter… all brainchildren of Jez San.  I tip my hat (if I was wearing one) to this great man, and thank him for his very important contributions to the time I waste when I should be studying.  His hand kickstarted the genre of 3D gaming.

</soapbox>

-Lemmingski

To put it short, nothing is going to really take-off until it becomes obvious that enough sales can be generated to make a healthy profit.  Sony for example has developed some pretty good “firsts” in technological advancement but some of their products never really took-hold and survived simply because not enough of the market share was captured.  Not too good with examples but two for Sony may be the BetaMax and MiniDisc.  Ofcourse most of the reason for this problem is their licensing and marketing practices or lack there-of.  Timing is also a key.
The point being, those companies that were responsible for bringing the PC home and generating huge sales were the most influencial.  Once it was proven that it could be profitable, everybody and their Grandmama became interested in starting-up their own business to compete for market share.  With more PCs in more people’s hands, more exposure generates more innovation; and more innovation generates more opportunities for the overall industry to expand and grow into new and unexplored sectors.  The entertainment industry continuously pushes coding experts to new heights and inturn demands significant improvements in hardware technology.  The communications industry conversely with its’ limited hardware and bandwidth capability, pushes its coding experts to be more efficient than ever.  A lot of our technology exists with the military and business long before the average consumer sees it.
My first experience with a home PC began with the Atari 400 Computer.  This little machine utilized the BASIC computing language and standard “audio” tapes to store programs.  Storing the data in analogue form, for I this never worked correctly as the data was only recognized by the PC on playback, immediately after recording.  Wait a day and your four hours of programming was lost. It also accepted cartridges for which you could purchase programs and what-not.  It had at least one peripheral connect interface through which you could connect various well, peripherals such as the data recorder or printer.  It came with a few BASIC programs, numerous manuals a data recorder and I think two games… one of which was Centipede. 

The Sub-$1000 PC! personally, i remember the point when computers finally broke the sub-$1000 (USD) point....

before decent computers could be built for under $1000, companies like HP, Packard Bell, etc. found LOTS of ways to cut corners to lower prices… they soldered video chips, RAM, cache, and anything else down to the motherboard to cut cost, cut down tech support until it was a joke, cut warranties down, and even sold used/refurbed equipment as new (*cough* Packard Bell *cough*).

this was the point my family bought a PC.  even though they weren’t top of the line, they ran windows and played the bundled games. 

i’d say to this day, inexpensive systems (i.e. HP, Compaq, eMachines) dominate the market, not because they’re the fastest/look the best, because they were affordable. this is the same reason the Model T Ford did so good.  they provided products to the masses. 

<<

<< <i>… Windows 95 was a milestone.... >>

NO windows version was EVER a milestone in computing history. They were well (or just ok as win9x - win2k is ok/even good) made, exceptionally well marketed. But “a milestone”? Never. Mac OS was a milestone. Amiga OS was a milestone. I never ever had a Mac or an Amiga - only windows and linux. But when I seen good stuff, I give credit to it.

Mike</i> >>

If they were such milestones how come no one uses them? Windows 95 coupled with Netscape Navigator are the single most important events in the history of desktop computing, I was selling OEM PCs at the time and watched demand escalate like we never imagined. The next real milestone was when Compaq broke the $1000 price point, and if you notice the whole market has levelled off since these events. While every event in the original article is most certainly important, none compare to these 3 events. When geeks look back we will see all of these things, when historians look back they will see those 3 events as the driving force that put PCs in more homes. And please KME, no Linux zealot revisionist history. 

From my recollection of the time, there are two key pieces that are rarely discussed in the computer revolution.

First was Microsoft’s marketing of MS-DOS. After licencing the OS to IBM for what became PC-DOS, Microsoft quietly started marketing MS-DOS as “virtually identical to PC-DOS” to other computer manufacterers.

Compaq, I’m pretty sure, had IBM’s blessing to sell their “portable” computer because it was a market that IBM had no interest in at the time.

Other company’s (Eagle PC, Corona Data Systems, Columbia Computers, etc.) started marketing “98 percent compatible” systems. That was when the industry found out just how deadly 2 percent could be. Most of the incompatibility was in the video. If you couldn’t emulate IBM’s video, many programs just wouldn’t run properly. The benchmark was whether a system could run Lotus 1-2-3.

This brings us to the second event. Phoenix Technologies brought out a new BIOS that successfully emulated the IBM BIOS. Suddenly, the clones COULD run Lotus 1-2-3 along with virtually the entire library of software of IBM software.

That’s when the clone revolution really started…

The single most influential event in PC history IMHO was the inclusion of PS/2 ports on the back of IBM PS/2 machines.
Every other port had been pretty much standard up to that time, so the development of USB and Firewire can be directly
traced back to that root .

The next most influential event was those ports being colour(color) coded Purple and green.

The Single Most Influential thing to the PC would have to be the internet… now we can talk worldwide, share things world wide,and who knows what’s in store next?