| A REVOLUTION is taking place in the personal computer industry. While this revolutionis driven by technology, it s affecting the type and range of applications for which personalcomputers are used. At the heart of this revolution is the declining cost of computer power.Dramatic cost reductions have taken place in processing power, random access memory,and data storage. For example, in 1980, the cost of 1 megabyte of storage was over $100.Now, a megabylJe costs around $30. At the same time, personal computers have becomeincreasingly powerful and sophisticated. The typical 8-bit, 64K, dual-drive IBM PC thatused to be the deskiop standard has been replaced by the 32-bit, 640 1( AT or " 386machine" with a 40 megabyte hard drive and a 1.44 megabyte floppy drive. Even morepowerful machines are just around the corner. Until recently, personal computers with hard disk drives were too expensive for homeand small business use. A 10 megabyte hard drive unit alone used to cost over $1,000.PCs equipped with hard drives were mainly used tbr applications involving large amountsof data. After all, that s what hard disks are for--storing lots of data, right? But times havechanged. The latest generation of personal computers, with faster microprocessors and in- creased memory capacities, are changing the applications programs used with microcom- puters. Word processing programs, spreadsheets, and database programs are all getting faster, fancier, and bigger. Another trend in software is the move to integrated programs, which incorporate the functions of several types of applications into a single package. Such programs tend to be massive. While many of these programs can still be run on computers having only floppy.drives, some recommend the use of a hard disk, and most actually require one. Even if it |
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