That Was Then
When you get to my age, looking back at the history of PCs owned, it’s amazing just how much PC specs have advanced over the years. My very first PC was a TRS-80, which loaded programs via tape cassettes. The programs were written in BASIC, a language I eventually mastered, and each was volume-sensitive. So I kept a list of programs, each marked with the optimal volume for loading successfully.
I then moved on through the Commodore series – Commodore 64 and Amiga 500/600 – which, I admit, were used primarily for games. And eventually to my first Windows PC, which was a Dell fitted with a Pentium 4 single-core CPU, a 40 GB HDD, and 256 MB RAM, which I later upgraded to 512 MB.
The PC Spec Revolution
PC specs went through a massive upgrade during 2007- 2008, the likes of which had never been witnessed previously. The start of that PC spec revolution just happened to coincide with Vista’s release (January 2007), and that created a huge problem. Vista was the first operating system to introduce a new visual style known as Windows Aero, and that, along with other visual and GUI enhancements, meant it was far heavier on resources than its predecessors.
The problem being that many users still owned older PCs that struggled to meet Vista’s demands, and these users were reluctant to replace their perfectly working PCs with brand new machines just so they could run the latest Windows operating system. Sound familiar?
I’ve always maintained that Vista was a good operating system, but it was the victim of poor timing. Had Vista been released a year later, I have little doubt it would have been received far more favorably. At the time, I was in a bitter/sweet situation – my old PC died just before Vista was released, so I was forced to fork out for a new PC, and that new PC easily handled Vista’s demands.
This Is Now
Now, my main machine is fitted with an Intel i7-11700, 16 GB RAM, a 500 GB NVMe SSD, a 500 GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD, and a 1 GB HDD (data drive). My, how things have changed.
So, what has been the greatest advancement in PC specs?
We’ve seen DDR (RAM) move from DDR1 through to DDR5, bringing a significant performance boost with each iteration. We’ve seen USB move from USB1 through to USB4, with speeds roughly doubling with each new iteration. We’ve seen CPUs grow from single-core to multi-core/multi-thread beasts. We’ve gone through floppy disks, HDDs, and on to SSDs.
In my humble opinion, it’s a toss-up between the advancements in CPUs and moving from HDDs to SSDs. I do favor the CPU advancements; however, after all, the CPU is the beating heart of the PC.
Your turn, what do you consider to be the greatest advancement in PC specs? Share your thoughts via the comments.
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