(ASSINGMENT)>>Triumph of the Nerds: Impressing their Friends 1

“Triumph of the Nerds: Impressing their Friends”, it is about the emergence of the Personal Computer (PC), stimulating the “PC Revolution”.

At first, Apple had a shaky beginning, but Steve Jobs turned to venture capital for funding. This resulting the new “Apple II”. The “Apple II” being brilliantly designed by Steve Jobs. This can be seen from the sales and profits were so good that Apple soon have more money than they can spend. Unfortunately the PC was still mostly for hobbyist. When it came to the software and applications, which made the PC more useful. The first to appear is the spread sheet, VISICALC. At it came just at the right time, at a time when the commercial world was booming, and a spread sheet program was proofing to be really useful.

In 1975, Ed Roberts introduced the world’s first PC, the Altair 8800. This stimulated the founding of computer clubs, one of them being the “Homebrew Club”. Still it was practically useless, until Paul Allen came up with a “basic interpreter” or software for it, known as “Basic”. After a successful demonstration with “Basic” using the Altair, Paul Allen team up with Bill Gates and founded Microsoft in Albuquerque. Soon, by the end of 1975, a few companies producing micro-computer cropped out.

The PC industry was developing rapidly, and PC companies have mushroomed to meet the enormous demand, but still Apple dominated the scene.

They were big, bulky, and required special care. Besides that, the operators need to learn a bunch of codes in order to operate it. And to add to the problem, every computer used different codes, known as “machine language”. Therefore earlier computers were not convenient. Making the computer a bit more user friendly. Initially, computers were not given much attention. But some did take notice, the “nerds”. Microprocessors were soon created by Intel, replacing transistors and vacuum tubes, and it rolled the ball for what would be the “PC Revolution”.