The personal computer is nothing new. We no longer need to “keep up with the Jones’” over the fact they have a computer, we all have one. We hardly compete over the spec either nowadays, as fast computers with large memories are pretty affordable.

With such access to the great technology of today it is hard to think that computers used to be so incredibly low in memory, storage and graphics – yet so amazing at the same time.

In the beginning

Some of the first ‘personal computers’ (not those room-sized giants from the 1940′s) arrived in the 1970′s, with the Sphere 1 in 1975 and the Apple 1 in 1976.

The Sphere 1 was originally a build yourself machine but later pre-assembled. It featured a pretty low 4KB of RAM that would be no good for your average Call of Duty game, but it did the job. Possibly the best bit of trivia surrounding the Sphere 1 is that it was the first ever computer to use the command Control-Alt-Delete, apparently made famous by Bill Gates.

The Apple 1 was also a build it yourself machine, featuring the same amount of RAM as the Sphere 1 – no World of Warcraft then. Pictures of the Apple 1 show the company’s flair for design came a little later in life…

Best of the 80′s

The most significant developments, at least in the UK, were these three computers. Take note of the prices now, some far cheaper, although getting yourself an IBM 5150 could still set you back. (Prices found on Vintage-Computer.com)

BBC Micro (1981)

The BBC Micro was made by Acorn and part of almost every UK school at the time. This machine holds a place in my heart for that very reason. The machine was part of a BBC initiative called the ‘BBC Computer Literacy Project’ and had a heavy focus on education.

Commodore 64 (1982)

The Commodore 64 went on to become the world’s best selling computer due to a decent price point and some flexible hardware. The machine had a great presence in both the UK and US – unlike rivals Spectrum and Amstrad computers which failed to even make a dent across the pond.

IBM 5150 PC (1981)

In the 1980′s it used to be a common activity when buying software to check the label and look for the iconic phrase “SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: IBM-compatible PC…” IBM’s first low-cost single user computer was often copied by lots of different manufacturers and would be known as ‘IBM Clones’.

Interestingly, Microsoft acquired the rights to the popular PC DOS operating system it ran, from which MS DOS was developed, which was used on all IBM-compatible machines.

Interestingly, the cost when first introduced was $1,000 and whilst you can now pick them up pretty cheaply, we noticed one going for $900 on eBay.

Post 80′s and the mobile web

The 1990s was a lot about the race of hardware improvements. With the introduction of  CD-ROMs for multimedia – music, video, games, education, etc the personal computer jumped forward in the range of activities it was used for. Despite now using USBs and downloading software online, CDs remain prevalent in our computer usage.

Then came 1996 and the first commercially available device for accessing the mobile web.  And the phone of choice for early adopters? A stylish Nokia 9000 Communicator – the birthplace of the mobile web as we know it? Quite possibly.

With computers now doing incredible things at amazing speed, it is hard to think anyone would yearn for the past and want one of the old relics listed above. But strangely enough, in our search for gear for this post, we found a couple of sites obsessed with PCs of old.

If you head over to CommodoreUSA.net you’ll find brand new Commodore 64′s that apparently runs all modern PC software. The updated version (although you may not notice by looking at it) has all the features of a modern PC, with DVD drive (Bluray optional), memory expandable up to 4GB, USB slots and HDMI output.

So if you have been swayed by this post, or are fed up of Commodore emulators, this newer C64 ‘Ultimate’ can be bought for up to $895 – quite a bit more expensive than the original, but with a 1Tb hard drive and Bluray drive you can’t complain!

The BBC iPlayer recently added support for the site pinning feature in Internet Explorer 9, giving the iPlayer a chance to be a permanent fixture on the Windows 7 taskbar whether or not the website is open. “This gives a brand a great opportunity to be in the user’s line of sight and I can only see the competition for that precious space getting tougher” says Michael McClary over on his blog.

How do you pin a site?

Simply go to the BBC iPlayer site (using Internet Explorer 9) and drag the icon to the left of the address over to the Windows taskbar.

The iPlayer jumplist

Once you’ve pinned the site to your taskbar, you can right click the icon to view the shortcuts in the jumplist:

Other advantages

Also, if you are playing a programme, hovering on the icon gives a preview window with pause/play button for the main iPlayer window – useful when using multiple screens:

Other sites you can pin

Similarly, LinkedIn (along with many others) has an IE9 pinned experience, for more examples of sites, such as Rough Guides and Sky News, making the most of the Internet Explorer 9 pinning, accelerated graphics and HTML5 standards, check out http://www.beautyoftheweb.co.uk.

How to enable your site for pinning

This is really very simple, check out Simon May’s post Enhancing basic web pinning for #IE9, for details.

Putting on my old man hat for a minute or two, comedy ain’t like it was back in the day…

Because of this, we’re quite excited about The One Ronnie on Christmas day. As a teaser, they’ve released this brilliant sketch that covers off most gadgets that are out today…

Sit back, hold on to your mulled wine and enjoy:

That Microsoft has released its first app for Android

A gorilla on Mars isn’t the weirdest thing that’s been spotted there

What the BBC spends its money on (and it’s not 6 Music and websites)

In Switzerland, it is illegal to mow your front lawn while you’re dressed as Elvis

You can’t name a folder ‘con’ in Windows. But do you really want to?

BBC 6 Music and Asian Network face axe in shake up, plus half of the websites on BBC online will close by 2013,  to focus on making “fewer things better”. The question is, what’s ‘better’? 

Fancy yourself as a Karaoke King? Now it’s easier to try your chances at world ‘pop’ domination as X Factor invites applications via online video.

Ever returned from holiday to find a huge phone bill from surfing the net abroad? Bad times.  New rules to govern mobile phone internet bills should limit mobile phone bills. Good times!

This week’s BBC Click was, not surprisingly, focused on Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As the biggest mobile conference the world has to offer this is where handset manufacturers, network carriers and even software companies set our their stall both present and future.

Of course the Windows Phone made a big splash and, although the device itself didn’t really feature in the programme there was a good, albeit brief, interview with Steve Ballmer. Whatever you think about Steve I’m always left in awe of his ability to handle questions across the broadest of spectrums. Today’s it’s mobile devices in Barcelona, tomorrow cloud computing in Arizona and Friday we hit Broadway with your thoughts on the global financial crisis. Got that Steve?

In other news there was Flash coming to a phone near you with the release of 10.1 – not the iPhone mind, as clam-like a platform as you’re ever likely to find. Then there’s the new Firefox mobile browser with tabbed browsing, session sync with your desktop and a selection of plug-ins. There was also a demo of Opera on a giant iPhone though I daresay they’ll have it working on normal-sized iPhones very soon.

As far as phones were concerned there was of course the Windows Phone 7 Series, more people / relationship centric with real-time updates and Zune-like capabilities for media. I’m tied to the iPod for my in-car integration but I love the sound of the Windows Phone as a multi-purpose device. Given Click told me it would sync with iTunes I can have one of each and still get depressed being forced to manage my music via my least favourite piece of software. Actually I must investigate iTunes alternatives someday but trying to convince my wife to change is likely to be an insurmountable obstacle. She embraces any change on our home PC about as much as polar bears look forward to global warming.

There were also new devices from HTC – the Desire and Legend – and a very interesting looking UI designed to be operated with one hand which got about 3s of coverage. It was from Israel and called something like Else. Elsie maybe? Elf? Who knows. There were intelligent keyboards that change layout and function depending on context (I struggle enough as it is without having to deal with that added layer of complexity), a phone with integral solar-panel from Puma and an iPhone credit card reader. Good luck with that.

One thing that stood out was a phone for the over-50s. Having seen how much the “older generation” can struggle with small keys and small screens, a decent phone targeting that demographic and just being able to “make calls” will be welcomed with open arms I’m sure. And there was the iPhone scanner which Kate seemed very excited about. Excited out of all proportion with its capabilities I would say. I’m sorry but I just don’t get it. For one I can never recall a need to “scan something using my phone” and for another, if I really did, I’d just take a photo of it and turn it into a suitable format later. Clearly I’m missing something.

The serious theme of the show though was the growth in mobile data traffic. The charts showing the comparison between the rate of voice traffic growth (none) and data (lots) over the past few years was illuminating. At what point will our networks be overwhelmed? When will we need 4G to cope? Why do we still pay so much for voice calls? Are we all going to have to live next to a mast? These and other questions were tackled by Kevin Russell, CEO of network operator 3 who gave a refreshingly frank interview.

Me, I’m off to scan some documents with my phone. Photocopying is so passe…

The show is presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski, who you might recognise from her regular column on culture and video games for The Guardian, or at last year’s Dconstruct conference, and demonstrates its gravitas by including interviews with Al Gore, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Vint Cerf and Evan Williams.

The thread running through the narrative of the programme is the fight for power, the reinvention of warfare and the scramble to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the old centres of power and what that means for us.

The rhetoric is made vivid by real world examples like Twitter threatening the state when 2 million people from Iran sent tweets around the world claiming elections had been rigged. Power to the people!

As someone who hasn’t studied the origins of the internet I was fascinated by Vint Cerf’s motivation behind creating something that didn’t have any central control. The Government was in the middle of the cold war and wanted a highly reliable and resilient system so didn’t want it housed in one central place where it could be destroyed. Aleks then takes us to Mountain View in California where one of the 13 root servers is housed and I breathe a sigh of relief when she asks the one question I wanted her to ask: What happens when you pull the plug or power outage?

Here goes the answer: Most data centres around the world have bunch of redundancies, like uninterruptable power supplies, so if a root server goes down there are 12 others. Even if there is an attack on all 13, those 13 servers are a constellation of 191 other servers, so you would have to knobble a collection of servers to get an impact. As it’s a global, shared system no individual country could bring it down. An international independent body oversees the route servers, but even its role is limited. No-one has the power to regulate or turn the internet on or off. 

More examples are given of the battles against authority and people. Wikileaks  allows people to anonymously to blow the whistle on governments and organisations. It published the membership list of the BNP, classified documents from Guantanamo Bay, and exposed hundreds of alleged assassinations by Kenyan police. It offers a safe, anonymous way for people to submit this information, although I was left wondering whether the fact the information is out in the public domain actually stops any wrongdoing from continuing.

China is also discussed at length, focussing on the fact that the government is not only worried about information coming into its country, but more importantly about information exchanged within its walls. The programme delves into the intricacies of censorship and various tactics employed by governments and states.

Wrapping up with a bit of scare mongering themselves (and probably quite rightly too), Aleks highlights how vulnerable we are to cyber war  – where there’s conflict in the real world, there’s  conflict online – and the fact it’s very difficult to know who’s attacking you.

If you want to find out what you missed you can watch it on BBC’s iPlayer until 27th Feb, although it’s only available if you’re in the UK (blame the BBC, I love the internet, please don’t hate me).