Two recent “computer obituaries” and one “birth announcement” caught my eye recently. Taken together, they serve as a commentary on the nature of the computer industry, and remind us that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

This week Apple stopped selling the revolutionary original iMac through it’s online retail store. The iMac, first released in 1998, changed the face of the industry, and is credited by many with saving Apple Computer in the late 1990s. Before the iMac, computers (even Apple’s) were made up of three components – an ugly beige box with a noisy fan, known as a “tower”, which was usually hidden below the work surface; a bulky cathode-ray-tube (TV) monitor that crowded the desktop; and the resulting computer desk to house all the equipment. Suddenly, there was a computer that didn’t require a dedicated desk. It’s colorful, small-footprint design begged to be displayed, and it’s ingenious air cooling system did away with the noisy fan. Soon, PC look-alikes started popping up, some actually squashed by Apple’s legal department due to their nearly identical designs.

Critics derided the iMac for lacking one “crucial” feature – a floppy drive. How could Apple do such a thing? Jobs and Apple, being true innovators, realized that, especially in the consumer market, the data people would be saving and transporting was about to get much “bigger”. Digital photos and digital video were coming, and the 1.4 MB floppy disk wasn’t going to hold enough data. Plus, the expanding internet and increasingly fast connections (DSL and cable modems) gave users the option to store and transport their data on-line.

The original iMac also had two “new fangled” USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports. You could plug and unplug USB devices without freezing your computer - a feat not possible with earlier serial and parallel connections. Today, USB is the industry standard in connecting peripherals – printers, scanners, even hard drives.

In 1999 the iMac was the first consumer computer to sport FireWire ports, and home digital video editing was born.

All good things come to an end. In 2002 the iMac evolved into the current flat-panel version, and the original was relegated to the entry-level, low-price model.

On to the next “obit”. A few weeks ago Michael Dell, the Steve Jobs “wanna-be” of the PC industry, announced (perplexingly, to the ire of some) that the venerable 1.4 MB floppy drive was dead. No! It can’t be! Mr. Dell went on to proclaim that the growing crop of USB-based storage solutions, like key-fob-sized devices with 128 MB of memory, would take the floppy’s place. Not bad, Mr. Dell. You’re only five years behind the rest of the industry. In fact, four years after FireWire was standard on the iMac, you still have to special-order a FireWire card on most Dell computers for an additional $50. This is the same Michael Dell who announced that Dell laptops were the first to integrate wireless networking – years after Apple did it.

Speaking of wireless networking, there’s the recent birth announcement from Intel of “Centrino”. Centrino is the combination processor - wireless networking card for laptops. You’ve probably seen the barrage of commercials, showing happy PC laptop users, sitting outside at their neighborhood gourmet coffee shop, or maybe in a bustling airport, passing around email viruses and beaming as they search the web for Microsoft security hole patches. All facetiousness aside, you’d think from the media blitz that Intel just invented WiFi. One dirty little Centrino secret – you can’t upgrade it to a faster standard. More built-in PC obsolescence. Faster WiFi? New laptop.

Yep, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Apple Computer continues to move the industry forward. Why wait for the PC version?

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski