There are two interesting computers available in the year 1992. Commodore 64 and the Nextstation color turbo. First thing to mention is, that from today's perspective both systems are outdated The C64 was equipped with only 64kb of RAM, while the Nextstation had around 16 MB of RAM. Both is too little for serious applications.
In 1992 both computers were used with passion from their owner. The Commodore 64 was the most sold computer ever and a lot of software was available. While the next computer was state of the art technoogy which had better hardware specifications than any other PC at this time. But the problem is, that in both cases the system was not ready fro internet access, it wasn't possiblee to run biggger appliation and a simple video can't be played back. The chance is high that even a simple mp3 file can't be played on the next machine but this is only a cynical assumption.
The problem is not located in the manufactoring companies which was Commodore and Next but the main cause why the hardware was slow was the year 1992. At this time, all the computers on the market where slow and too expensive. The funny thing at the same time, the year 1992 is equal to the most advanced technology ever available in the computer technology history. Compared to the computers 10 years ago, the Next station was a great piece of hardware.
It was explained in a previous blog post that the year 1992 was some kind of milestone year. The classical period of computers has ended and the way was started to new sort of technology which will revolutionize everything. We can say the computers until 1992 were designed with classical principle in mind. There was a monitor, a cpu, a bit of RAM and sometimes a harddrive was available. The idea was, that the computer can execute small programs and is able to run some games.
So we have to ask what is the difference to today's technology. The difference is, that computers in 1992 never were equipped with 256 MB and more RAM, they had never a harddrive larger than 1 gb, they were not able to playback video clips and very important they weren't able to show the World wide web. Let us figure out how these applications were handled until the year 1992. Larger amount of data were not stored on computers but they were stored in printed sheet of papers. Also books and journals were very important in this time. The only technology option to playback videoclips was the television which includes a VHS recorder, and a technology like asearch engine over the internet wasn't invented yet. Instead the people have visited a library or asked a printed encyclopedia.
The reason why the year 1992 is the milestone year but not the year 1987 or 5 years later is because around the year 1992 the World wide web was invented. This marks the transition from classical computing into a new area. If we are going only 10 later into the future to the year 2002 every thing has changed. At this time, fast and very powerful computers are available who are able to playback video and can browse in the internet. All the problems of former 1992-computer technology was solved. The average desktop PC in 2002 was equipped with endless RAM, unlimited amount of harddrive and a fast cpu which can run multiple appplications.