The Computer. It has changed our lives infinitly. It is hard to imagine our modern world without a microprocessor. You can find the little things in almost everything. Your car has tons of 'em. Your microwave oven. Your calculator. Your cell phone, pager, PDA or any of a billion other devices that make our lives easier. Since November 15, 1971, when Intel introduced the worlds very first processor, the 4004, the processor has implanted itslef within our lives. However, there was still alot of refinement to be made, this dinosaur had a paltry 2300 transistors and a whooping clock speed of 108KHz, thats right KILOHERTZ! The next big step in microprocessor technology was Intel's 80386, or the 386 for short. This chip was 32-bit, just like todays screaming multi-gigahertz processors. The 386 featured 275,000 transistors and clock speeds ranging from 16 MHz (Megahertz) to 33 MHz. This chips biggest hallmark, however was it's compatibility, it was backward compatible with other chips and worked with Microsoft's operating system, Windows(R). Since then all processors have carried on this compatibility, known as x86.
In the begining, Intel dominated the hardware PC industry. They were the only legitamate manufacturer of processors and other PC componenets. Meanwhile, a man named Bill gates was getting very rich making operating systems, or a software program that controlles PC hardware. Mr. Gates had created a revolutionary product with his Windows(R) OS. Windows(R) introduced the idea of a Graphical User Interface, or GUI, sometimes pronounced "Gooey." The GUI of Windows made the PC a place for any ol' Joe, not just for techies and engineers. Now, with the entire world as its market Intel and Microsoft could accelerate the PC world to the next level...
Since then, the computer world has grown by leaps and bounds. We know have legitimate competition in a business sector that started in monopoly. Advanced Micro Designs, or AMD, now holds a respectable portion of the microprocessor market and constantly challenges Intel as the number 1 manufacturer of microprocessors. Indeed, AMD was the first to 1GHz and its budget-minded Duron(R) processor far outpaces Intel's Celeron (R). Not to mention the formidable Athlon(R) processor, arguably the fastest processor on the market in its AthlonXP(R) trim. In the mobile PC market, Transmeta has made a name for itself, offering its low-voltage Crusoe(R) chip, a powerful notebook processor that delivers long battery life and powerful computing.
As far as Bill Gates and his venerable Windows(R), Apple(R) Computers has provided strong competition as well as Linux(R). Steve Jobs, creator of Macintosh, has created a very stable and effcient computing platform for those seeking alternitives to Microsoft's domination. Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college student, developed Linux(R), a Unix(R) based operating system whose hallmark was extreme system stability and speed. However, Microsoft still dominates the market as far as Operating Sytems go, perhaps a little bit more competiton in this market wouldn't hurt...
Fastforward to 2002. As I write this, Intel has released its "Northwood" Pentium4(R) processor with clock speeds up to 2.2GHz (Gigahertz, or a billion cycles per second) and AMD has its Palomino-core AthlonXP(R) processor which introduces IPC, or Instructions Per Clock cycle, to the game. At speed up to 1.6GHz, it pales in contrast to the Pentium4(R) from a pure clock cycle perspective but the higher effeciency of the Athlon chip allows it to outpace similar processors clocked many frequencies higher. We also have Microsoft's latest Windows(R) OS, WindowsXP(R). According to Microsoft, it is thier most revolutionary OS since Windows95(R) introduced the "Start Bar."
