Platform History

Platforms
Used by William P. Fritz
© W P Fritz

Evolution of Computing Platforms
Also see "Use of C/C++/C#", "Use of Basic", "Skill relationships", or return to the main menu

	Hardware	Software
60s-70s	Many scientific analog recorders: Brush, Harvard, Cambridge. Oscilloscopes, Coulter Counters, EKG machines	Software was a term used to describe tools used to record and tabulate data, such as pencils, paper, folders, spanners, rulers, slide rules and paperclips.
1972	Olivetti P-602 digital microcomputer. Medlars dialup	Programmable calculator used for biosimulations and solving repetitive complex equations Centralized medical library access
1977	Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-11 minicomputer, VT105 terminals, DEC-10 mainframe	RT-11 / MINC-11, Real-time data collection and analysis, Basic Application software as we know it today was generally not available. Software and relevant books weren't written yet. User Groups were extremely helpful in the process of writing the code to accomplish tasks in the laboratory.
1978	Apple II/II+ microcomputer	Apple DOS / Integer Basic, FP Basic, Pascal, Motorola 6502 Machine Language
1981	Hewlett-Packard (HP) 1000 minicomputer, 2648 terminals, X-Y plotters	FMGR / 3357 LAS Laboratory Automation, Real-time; Research Information Processing System (RIPS). HP DB Image/Query, HPGL, HPPCL
1981	International Business Machines (IBM) 360/4000 mainframe, 3478 terminals	MVS, JCL, TSO, cardreaders and punches, Fortran IV and 77, Focus, SAS, SPSS
1981	Perkin-Elmer and various Analog Computers	Process automation controllers for laboratory devices and factory production.
1982	Intel 8080/8086 and Zilog Z80 microcomputers in IBM-PCs, TekTronix, TRS-80	IBM-DOS, Microsoft MS-DOS, BasicA, GWBasic, dBase, Unix, Lotus, Foxpro Exploding growth and accessibility to desktop computers sidestepped the security, access, availability and political control issues that had developed in the IBM mainframe environment.
1984	HP Intel 8086/7 150a and b microcomputers, and 802.3 networks (VAR)	MS-DOS v 1.x, Compiled Basic, 3-COM network flags Connectivity among microcomputers began to develop. Data and applications could be shared easily. Security, hardware pricing and usage changed the workplace dramatically. Secretaries, receptionists and operational support staff began to dwindle in the enterprise. Users began to "program" in applications such as Lotus.
1985	DEC PDP-8	DEC Basic, IBM Word Processing
1987	Intel i80(8), 80186(16), 80286	MS-DOS v 2.11, Basic, Borland Turbo C, MS Quick C and Basic, dB2 rdbms As microprocessor speeds increased from 2.3mH to 100mH, graphics, including games, increased the market for hardware, thus reducing unit price. Laser printers were available for less than $2000.
1991	Apple Macintosh, Motorola 68000	System 7, API, Symantec Think C Graphics-based applications on microcomputers provided a new impression of computing needs. Larger disk drives forever altered datacentric computing.
1992	Intel 80286, 80386	MS Windows 2.0, 3.1, MS Quick C, Borland C v 3.0, DDE, Win16 API Microsoft's first real windows version translated into a huge boon for new windows versions of established DOS software.
1993	Intel 486	Borland C v. 4.5, MS Visual C, Java, OLE Interfacing among applications became a hot topic with Object Linking and Embedding, which evolved to COM and beyond.
1996	Intel, Internet	MS Windows 95, OLE, OLE2, COM, Win32 API, HTML arrived as a universal terminal control language that brought back "block mode" from mainframe days using the internet.
1998	Intel 586, Pentium 3, standalone and client-server Networks	MS Windows 98, NT-4, Visual Studio C/C++, InterDev, VB 3.0-7.0, Borland C/C++ v 6.5, ASP, COM, MS SQL The success of HTML's UML extensions into XML began to impact cross-platform objects.
1999	the GHz threshold paved the way for .Net and EJB	Microsoft announced that the company would be organized into divisions that expressed their business model: Operating systems, .Net library development and B-Central, direct business application delivery to end users. The .Net white papers clarified their approach to use a set of runtime libraries which were planned to be container-independent.
2000	Broadband Emerges	Migration of business tasks to networked microcomputers helped fuel the .COM boom. XML, web services, and applications like Crystal reports are increasingly used for most routine business tasks. Implementing a solution becomes a process of incorporating coordinated modular objects.
2003	HTML version 2	World Wide Web standards are available as non-propietary word processing options. HTML had been emerging as a tool for browsers to display content since 1993. JavaScript (and EcmoScript) were developing as real-time manipulations of HTML within pages at the client. Terminal Control Languages were therefore becoming non-proprietary standards.
2015	HTML version 5	Version 5 of HTML has increasing been standardized as the evolution of SGML and XML progressed. PDF (Printed Document Format, by Adobe) was contributed to the public domain. Video presentations were incorporated into standard V5 HTML.
2019	Smart Phone Client dominant	Primary target users are assumed to be using smart phones with small screens and no keyboard can be assumed. User Interfaces migrated from element attributes to the CSS style formats. The pandemic hastened the change from tradition monetization from sponsorship and physical trade with money and products. Trade based on marketing clicks, and the consolidation of corporations has removed editorialization and dis-associated providers of goods and services from their customers.
2022	Security Burdens increased	The common public code availability of databases and cookie usage has created the need to eliminate all assumptions of "good will" executed on the internet. The fad of "Artificial Inteligence" AI, adapted as marketing and IT corporate consolidation, has unleashed am unprecedented danger of data mining and the potential incorporation of publicly displayed information into "AI Databases" of automated plagiarism, endangering fact-based software. Business Planning, in particular, must be hardened from espionage. Fraud in the American market has acheived acceptability through administrated corruption.
Now	Web Apps Security Issues	MS .net, MS Windows 2000, 2003, XP, Vista, Win7, Win8, Visual C/C++/C#, Visual Basic (VB) v6-7, SQL 2005, Visual Studio 2005. These traditional tools are designed to integrate components as adapters for interfaces. Using the inheritance of OOP, RAD is accomplished by enforcing standards of scope through convention. These TSR components have brought new attention to asynchronous processing, lifecycle issues and garbage collection. Adaptations for cell phone browsers remain a priority. Fraud in the American market has acheived acceptability through administrated corruption.
Future	Personal Appliances Analog Integration Thick Clients	Software can broaden the capability of traditionally-analog appliances, With .Net, Microsoft's version of forms mode became even more similar to the 80s-style IBM 3278 terminals than the desktop and client-server applications that were prevalent in the 90s. Offloading server requirements, bogged down by server-generated controls and intermediate code, will result in a conscious return to smart clients which can be expected to use more fundamental facilities of client environments (eg: DirectX and hardware acceleration). Questionnaire Automation™ has always been designed to make computers personal. Especially under the attack of spam and social intrusion, I would expect a rebirth of "Personal" computing similar to the advent of microcomputers in the 80s. This trend remains in wait for a number of hardware, software and philosophical understandings. Large existing IT corporations can be assumed to continue their techniques as free enterprise becomes more vulnerable to the inhibition of innovation. Fundamental issues with internet architecture dominant since 2000 may require standards using the WWW as a platform for the secure system that it could have been. Government "regulation" and the illusion of "AI", Artificial Intelligence, is based on unproven and digital emulation of essentially analog processes. Humans will be removed as part of web interfaces, but will be recognized as necessary within the next decade.

Details of the evolution of these platforms can be seen at the Timeline.
Programming environments can be seen for Basic, for C and other structured programming languages.

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Click here if you have a few minutes to think.

Food for Thought

A word is made of letters, sentences integrate words and paragraphs reveal thoughts. Sometimes obvious concepts are hard to relate and grasp.

Because of the inherent nature of all CPU hardware, each language can branch on conditionals with different ASCII source syntax:
ASM: BNE, Fortran: Do Loop, Basic: For/Next, C/Java: For(i;a;b); Branching and jumping out of a coded sequence is the basis for program variation.
The sequence of all programming executions is serial. Interrupt structures vary depending on the operating systems. Windowing environments create a layer dedicated to processing events in simulated real-time based on buffering I/O. The Block Mode capabilities of terminals and other I/O devices is now often incorporated in central units. Terminal control languages have been deprecated by server protocols as a means of distributing tasks. FIFO logic is generally expressed in streaming terminology and there is a trend to consider files as persistent streams. Focus of programs has been on buffering logical units which are the interface to both hardware and modular snippets of code. OOP is an expression of this inheritance.

Network distribution of processing units and data have been a recurring priority since JCL and the Apollo Domain in the 70s. Terminology varies with the terminalogy [joke]. DDE, OLE, COM, DAO, XML, .net and HL7 are all recent acronyms applied to the same philosophical direction. Any container must house these processes transparently, however, each evolutionary step has developed a unique terminology. Experiments in typing interface variables upon reception have failed, so there is a return to requiring instantiated modules to be byte-specific. The role of the RIM in HL7 XML is a unique attempt to control dynamic changes in standards. Changing standards is a paradox, and, in fact, a contradiction in terms. Ironically, assuming that dispersed business units could be technically integrated, the largest practical barriers to success are social and political in nature. Issues of privacy, security, rights and generosity become necessary encumbrances. This, too, is part of the fugue of socio-technical evolution. McLuhen was wrong; the medium was never the message. It never was, and never will be... but that is another story.

There is presently a generally-accepted dependence of programming on static monitor displays because of the unpredictable sequence of painting events. Artistic creativity is stifled by the now-accepted limitations of consequential standard middleware. Recognizing this natural myopic behavior of specialization is always an opportunity to apply creativity in unique ways. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft's "Windows Platform Foundation" will be remarkable in any way other than using my initials (WPF). [joke] "Out of the box" web page methodologies appear unable to adapt to the increased variability of user displays and expectations. Rather than adopting 3rd party packages, I continue to protect my investment in technologies by following W3C best practices.

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Also see "Use of C/C++/C#", "Use of Basic", "Skill relationships", or return to the main menu