Computers :: essays research papers

Computers have come a long way in the last 40 years. From the room-filling machines of the 60's to the relatively tiny, sleek ATX form factor. The main reason for this achievement to be possible is the advent of the microprocessor made by IBM. This company had revolutionized the world of personal computer and fabricated the groundwork for the modern day PC. In the late 70’s, IBM was looking for someone to program an operating system for the revolutionary PC. They looked to one man by the name of Bill Gates who was starting up his own software company after dropping out of Harvard Law. Gates was always a whiz with computers so starting his own software company was a breeze for him and partner Paul Allen. While in high school, Gates made a program that would set him up to take all the classes with pretty girls and another program to set the seating charts in the room to maximize each class to have him not only in the same room, but in close proximity. Gates and affiliates at Microsoft accepted the challenge of creating an operating system for IBM’s PC. They came up with MS-DOS, or Microsoft-Disk Operating System. IBM loved it and it was implemented on every new PC that IBM made. Years passed and innovations to operating systems kept climbing. By the late 80’s, Microsoft had created many different versions of MS-DOS with each improving on the latter. Then, in spring of '89 they had unveiled Microsoft Windows. A graphical interface incorporated a mouse and appealing looks. At first Windows was not widely accepted, but after trial and error with versions to follow, Microsoft gained enough support to mass implement the system worldwide. By 1995, Microsoft hit yet another benchmark when it introduced Microsoft Windows 95. This operating system had more features and better compatibility, but was a little shaky on reliability. Microsoft's response to that was their Windows 98 which turned into the same story.