The PC: 35 Years and Counting - Essay Example

The PC: 35 Years and Counting- Article for Geek Wannabe News Introduction Technology has been advancing at a neck breaking speed for the last three decades. The most notable advances have been made in computer technology, especially in the transformation of the Personal computer and its adoption in many areas of life. In the last 35 years for instance, the PC has undergone phenomenal innovation to include some life altering changes, improvements and additions. In short, the breakthroughs that have transformed the PC to what it is today are far too many to list or describe. In this article, the focus will be in those technological advances of the PC that have affected the application of computers in games. In a list format, the areas in which great advances have been noted may include digital miniaturization, microprocessor design, display output, microprocessor speed, ram size and prices, plug and play devices, external storage and graphic card performance. Computer Games Computer games are those games whose software can run in personal computers and are normally operated with the use of PC compatible input and out put devices. Modern computer games are usually downloaded from internet sites or sold off in CD-ROMs. The games are simply some specialist programs that instruct the PC operating system to display some specific audio and visual effects. In modern games, the cutting-edge technology and creates a fast-paced form of entertainment. Computer Games Key Technological Advances in the PC Computer Steve Russel, a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology conceived and developed the pioneer computer game in 1962 and named it Spacewar (Kent 2001, p. 117). Ralph Baer, a reputed engineer at the defense contractors, Sanders and Associates, developed the pioneer home video gaming console and named it Magnavox Odyssey (Kent 2001, p. 117). These games had no color or sound output mainly because of the PC abilities during that time. Nonetheless, as the PC technology gradually advanced, so did the gaming technology. By 1980’s the computer games market there were thousands of game manufacturers in the US (Kent 2001, p. 117). The games that were developed then featured the adoption of improving PC technology such as increased display and processing speed. The computer games easily incorporated flashing lights synchronized with a variety of movie like sounds and animated action. The following technological advances have had the greatest impact to PC games applications. First off is the digital miniaturization ability, which refers to the reduction of processor speeds as well as the reduction of the size of most PC hardware. This can alternatively be referred to changes in the design of the processor Sawyer (1997, p. 113-176). In 1970’s, the computer processors were very huge and thus the computer itself had to be gigantic. However, increased technology helped incorporate millions of circuitry within a small board (processor) that turned out to be very space economical. Consequently, the PC itself reduced in volume. This meant that games could now be placed at homes with a home computer. Digital miniaturization has enabled a transformation of stand-alones into desktops, to laptops and now to palm tops Sawyer (1997, p. 113-176). The smaller the size of the computers the greater their applicability as games playing machines. With a laptop or palm top, one can easily play a game while in the car today. As noted in the introduction, pioneer computer games were played without color. Modern computers feature great advances that could not have been envisioned at the time. The Visual Display Unit, now called the monitor, was a mono color then. With time however, color monitors were manufactured and retailed across the world. That meant that games could then be played in color display. Advances in the manufacturing of computer display units saw them increase in the number of colors they could depict. The monitors were also amplified in their resolution ability such that we now have high resolutions monitors able to display millions of DPI’s (Herz 1997, p. 54). The size of the monitors have been reducing over time and becoming less heavy and lighter. This has increased they flexibility for use in playing games. Today, we have TFT screens that are amazingly light and small such that playing games at home or at the office is no longer delimited by available working space (Herz 1997, p. 54). Greater advances have also seen the introduction of touch screens as computer display units where one can easily play a game without input devices since the instructions can be given by touching the screen. The Graphic User Interface such as Windows and its enabled multi-media abilities were also introduced in the early 1980’s. This phenomenon came in to make the gaming experience even more thrilling. The computer had previously only featured texts for input and output. By late 1980’s, sound, pictures, animations and texts were incorporated as part of the content a PC could recognize. More so instructions were now packaged in form of icons that a game user could use without memorizing the instructions themselves (Gruber 1994, p. 68). This is the single premise that saw computer games become a household occupation even for those who had limited knowledge of computers (Gruber 1994, p. 68). Games were created with sound, animation, pictures and more importantly, with easy to understand instructions enabled by GUI. Everything one of these innovations was packaged as part of the PC all-in-one interface. The PC’s microprocessor speed has overtaken any possible expectations of even the most optimistic and ambitious engineer today. Just a few years ago, a prototype IBM microprocessor had a speed of less than 1 GHz. That was the highest achievement envisioned given that only a little while earlier, the same processor could only run for a quarter of such a phenomenal speed. According to Gruber (1994, p. 67), when the PC processor speeds were at around the 300 MHz range, they were though of as the best that the computer will ever have by many experts. Then came in improvements that finally saw the speed hit the 1 GHz mark, something was more or less like science fiction. Today, computer technology has marched onward and surpassed the 3 GHz mark of clock speed. Recently, IBM was in the news for collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, when they demonstrated silicon-germanium transistor that operated at an incredible speed of 500 GHz. Consequently, the processors improved speed has made the computer games more entertaining and feature packed. This is because fast processing speed enables a quick response rate while playing a game such that it seems to the player that the computer game is responding to in put in real time. 3GHz is almost like a zero reaction speed to the human mind, a million times faster that a human player can respond. As Gruber (1994, p. 67) says, that is why modern games are so entertaining, thrilling and attractive to the masses. The most prohibitive prices of the computer were notable when the Random Access Memory (RAM) was the single most expensive component of the computer. The only things that eventually made computers affordable to almost anybody, was the reduction of the RAM prices. Together with the reduction of price, the RAM ironically increased in capacity. Six years ago, most PC’s on sale from reputed manufacturers has 236 megabytes as their highest RAM size. Today however, the standard PC has a 1 GB RAM, an awesome size to say the least. The higher Ram size enables a PC to store more files at its highest retrieval area such that the response rate during a game is higher than when only a few files are stored in RAM and it the OS has to keep on transferring bits and bits of files from the hard disk (Katz & Yates 1997, p. 83-96). The gaming experience is thus better due to increased gaming speed and response time. The PC has also been transformed by better operating systems that allow the running of many gaming input devices like the joysticks, speakers, microphones optical mouse and multimedia key boards. These input devices give the player the ability to simultaneously control a computer game with ease and speed. The feedback is faster and more pronounced just as the control is more accurate and precise (Katz & Yates 1997, p. 83-96). The games programs of modern computer games are rich with graphics, animations, sounds and text. These programs thus demand a very high storage space to keep the files that enables the game to play on the PC. The PC storage was very minimal a decade ago, with the best PC’s in the market based on parts specifications had less than 40 Megabytes of internal storage. External storage was limited to small-capacity diskettes, tapes and the like. Today however, we have external disks capable of storing hundreds of Gigabytes and they can all be easily synchronized for easy retrieval. Besides the bulky hard disks, we also have flash disk storage, DVD’s and compact discs that help store games for easy retrieval during play. The PC can today store voluminous files either in the internal or external memory and access them as fast when such files are needed. Finally for this article, it must be mentioned that graphic card performance as a new technology for the PC has made it possible to create life-like computer games with realistic animation, art and feature simulation. Gruber (1994, p. 67) writes that the modern high-end graphics cards allow the PC to play 3D games such as Company of Heroes, Age of Conan, F.E.A.R., Race Driver Grid, Gothic 3, Halo2 etc with a fluency and resolution that was impossible a few years ago . Conclusion The above detailed are just but examples of the key technological advances of the PC that have been adopted in the last 35 years, and which have had a phenomenal impact on computer games experience. Computer game programming is still on the go and progressing towards greater sophisticated as the PC hardware improves by the day. Of special note is the development of the artificial intelligence capabilities that future computer games are set to adopt besides added graphics and special effects (Herz 1997, p. 54). Without a doubt, the future of computer games is going towards more interactivity between the computer and the player. References Gruber, D. (1994) Action Arcade Adventure Set. New York: Coriolis Group. Katz, A. & Yates, L. (1997) Inside Electronic Game Design. New York: Prima Publications. Sawyer, B. (1997) The Ultimate Game Developers Sourcebook. New York: Coriolis Group. Herz, J. (1997) Joystick Nation. Boston: Little, Brown. Kent, S. (2001) The Ultimate History of Video Games. Roseville, California: Prima. Read More