New stories about the revolutionary year 1992 in computer history

 

Most computer history today is told in a linear fashion. The idea is, that all the technology which is available today was invented in the mid and late 1980s. So modern technology is nothing else but a faster Apple II computer and a Commodore Amiga with more RAM.

The problem with this story is, that it ignores the turning point of 1992. This date was a milestone in computer hardware and very important the internet age has started. From a hardware perspective the year 1992 was the transition period from former 16 bit home computer to modern 32 bit PC. Here are some facts. The Atari ST which was a typical 16bit homecomputer was first released in 1985. That means 7 years later the hardware was available widespread but at the same time it was a bit outdated. In contrast a intel 386SX chip in a PC with the windows 3.0 operating was a modern computer in that area. The main difference is that the 386SX PC is a 32bit system and has a built in hard drive while the Atari ST not.

The year 1992 was at foremost the end point of the 1980s computer generation That means all the Amiga 500, Atari ST machines, the commodore 64 and the MS-DOS based 286'er has become obsolete. Instead a more modern 32bit IBM PC compatible architecture was perceived as the new standard. The interesting point is that such a drastical decline never happend again since that area. That means everything what was invented after the year 1992 is valid today. This splits up the computer history into at least two periods. The time until the year 1992 which was equal to 16bit hardware, low resolution graphics, floppy drives and no Internet. And the time after 1992 which is equal to cheap PC compatible hardware, GUI operating systems, high resolution games and of course the WWW.

From a hardware perspective there is a large difference between a 16bit Atari ST and a 32 bit IBM PC. The later one can be described as a workstation. That means it is not a home computer but a professional computer with built in harddrive, an ethernet connection and the ability to run multiple applications at the same time. In contrast a 16bit homecomputer has to be treated as a toy. It is some sort of gaming console.

There was a big difference before the year 1992 and after that date. Before this time the question for every computer nerd was how to build and and program a computer. What was available and common at this time were radio, TV screen and electronic ocmponents like transistors. What was not available was a computer. So the average computer nerd was happy if was able to build such a mschine from scratch and type in a program from a magazine line by line. After the year 1992 the situation has changed because since then computer technology was available. Every store has provided standard pc hardware and software which was ready to use. The computer has become part of daily living and was used for some practical applications like text processing and game playing.

It is interesting to see that around the year 1992 the articles in the computer journal have become trivial. It was common before the year 1992 that tutorials were published how to program a computer in assembly or how to build something by hand. In contrast the magaine after 1992 have tested existing software and made recommendation which hardware somebody should buy.

Before the year 1992 computer was a hobby and an adventure, after that date, computing has become trivial. This is not the same that computers went out of fashion but it means that the amount of possibilities has increased drastically. In the computer all the technology from the decades ago were aggregated. The unix operating system was ported to PC hardware, the video games were published only for PC hardware and the device has become the default tool for graphic designer, musicians, programmers and even for supercomputing applications.

Small critics of the Servo magazine

 The Servo magazine https://www.servomagazine.com/ is the only remaining printed robot magazine available. Possible alternatives like the Robot Magazine from Maplegate were terminated because of missing readership. In contrast, the Servo magazine is up and running since the year 2003. .Each issue has around 90 pages and the articles are equipped with high quality picture. The topic is mostly hardware dominated tipps about how to build physical toy robots and in addition some articles are published about the history of robotics which includes academic projects like Shakey the robot.

So what is wrong with the Servo magazine? The problem is that even the content is future ready the magazine looks outdated. It has much in common with a homecomputer magazine from the late 1980s. Not because the articles are written so bad or more advanced topics are missing but because the principle of a magazine is out dated. The better idea would be to extract a single article and put it into a separate space. Instead of publishing one issue with 10 articles the better idea would be to publish 10 article with each 9 pages. There is no need to aggregate different articles from the wide area of robotics into a single magazine.

The inner working of social networks

 Social networks like reddit and Facebook are a new phenomena in the internet. They are marketed as start page to the internet and the hope is, that they are providing an environment for advertisement and user profiling. Social networks are operating with a certain linguistic pattern which should be analyzed next. In short, the pattern works by focus not on a topic but to talk to people. Here is an example.

A newbie user of a social network has posted into a group a question about a random topic. For example he likes to know which Linux distribution works fine. A possible original post can be written the following way.

Hallo social network Linux group,

I'd iike to know if Ubuntu or Arch Linux is the better operating system. I'm asking because both systems have advantages and this makes it hard to select one of them. Thank you for reading my post.

—

So far, the initial posting is nothing special. A user has concrete problem (decision for a Linux distribution) and he posts the problem online so that a larger audience can read it. In a normal discussion forum which is not a social network, but a classical website a possible answer would read the following:

Dear Newbie,

thanks for joining our Linux group. I prefer the Arch Linux distribution because updates are delivered more frequently, so you have always the latest software version. By and have fun on the PC.

—-
A possible alternative answer would be the following:

Arch Linux is very complicated to use on a production system. The user has to install software all the time. In contrast, Ubuntu works robust and is recommneded for desktop systems.
—
From a content perspective both answer are different. They are recommending opposite Linux distribution. But from a language perspective they have much in common. Both are answering a question in an online forum and it is likely that they can be read in the real world.

Now let us compare the situation with a social network. Suppose the same OP is posted to such a networking side, the typical answer would read the following:

—-
In general, we are not discussing Linux distributions in such a way. Perhaps, you can answer the question by yourself.
—-

Another typical social network answer would read the following:
Why are you asking? Are you familiar with Ubuntu already?
—–

So let us try to describe both answer from a linugistic perspective. What they have in common is, that the topic was ignored, instead the person who is asking the Original post is under investigation. What the inital users was trying to achive was to discuss the pros and cons of Linux distribution. And what the social network is trying to do is to talk with the person who has asked the question.

It depends, if this linguistic pattern makes sense or not. What can described is, that social networks are producing such a pattern, while classical online forums are staying on the topic. So what potential users can do is to anticipate such a language pattern.

Analyzing the computer year 1992 in detail

 In previous blog posts it was mentioned already that the year 1992 was equal to a breakthough. At the same time, a period has ended and a new one was starting. Let us take a look into a TV show from that time about a computer show.

On the first look the format looks familiar. The episode of computer chronicles looks similar to what was known from the 1980s episodes. But at the same time, it was something new and not known before. Because aroun the year 1992 the internet has started to become a mainstream phenomena. At the same time, the computer has become attractive for larger amount of people. In contrast to the 1980s the average user was not only interested in the subject but he bought a PC for it's own and was doing something with it. We can say that the year 1992 was some sort of inbetween. It was different than the decades ago and it was improving by the years after 1992.

Let us listen to the episode itself. At first the moderator asks his quest what is new and amazing in this comdex fair. The answer was that lots of multimedia technology is available. The second point mentioned was, that mobility and notebook computers have become important. And the guest was right. In the year 1992 the computer has become a central hub for entertainment. In contrast to the situation in the 1980s the price was much lower and the hardware had a bigger capacity.

What was shown on the comdex as an example for multimedia, was the video for windows software in combination with CD-ROM drives. The interesting situation is, that at the same comdex show alternatives over the Windows operating system was presented by Apple. And this technology works the same way. So we can say that not a single technology was available but all the products from the year 1992 was fulfilling the requirements.

It should be mentioned that a lot of technology has become obsolete in 1992. For sure, the Commodore 64 was outdated, and the 16bit Amiga 500 too. Also, text terminals used for mainframe copmputers were outdated.

___Longer periods___

It is possible to split the computer history into two periods:

1. from 1962-1992 (30 years)

2. from 1992-2022 (30 years)

The year 1992 is the border between the periods. The first period can be described as old school computing. Computers were available the first time, they were slow, expensive and reserved for a small amount of engineers and scientists. In contrast, the second period introduced the computer as a mass product which has become cheap, powerful and suitable for all sorts of tasks. The interesting point is, that since the year 1992 the products from the first period have become out of fashion. Nobody was interested anymore in 8bit homecomputers, gaming systems which were equipped with 1 kb of ram. Also it has become unpopular to pay millions of US$ in exchange for tape drives which can store a few amount of megabytes.

Today it is the year 2021 and since 1992 not much has changed. The second period is up and running and the improvements are taking place only on a minor scale. All the technology available in 1992 is available today as well. The only improvement was that former 32bit cpu were replaced by 64bit cpus and that the software has improved in minor parts. But the general idea was available in 1992 as well. Major milestones like Windows operating systems, unix as a server system, 3d graphics for video gameing and mobile computer hardware was available in 1992.

If the duration of 30 years is typical duration for a longer period in computing the question is what will happen in the third period which goes form 2022-2052? The answer is not very complicated. The AI Revolution is something which is located at the horizon and it something which will revolutionize future computing drastically. There is a similarity to previous periods. In general AI and robots are available already. They were developed by large companies. The difference is, that these technology isn't available as a consumer product and that the capabilities are low. Perhaps this will change within the next 30 years?

___References___

[1] The Computer Chronicles - Comdex Fall 1992 (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evMilwVBHAQ

Random movements in a potential field

 

The robot is controlled by a random generator. In contrast to a uniform distribution which takes the direction decision equally, the idea is to modulate the probability with a bias provides by the environment. The robot won't collide with the obstacles but tries to reach the subgoal which is provided by the human operator.

The year 1992 was amazing milestone in computer technology

 On the first look the year 1992 looks similar to all the other years in computer history. But something was new. It seems that with this year a major milestone was reached and that 1992 was the start to the internet period.

To understand the breakthrough in detail we have to analyze the computer technology before this date. Computers were available an different layers: gaming konsoles (NES), homecomputer (Amiga 500), office PC (Intel AT), workstation (SUN), mainframes (IBM). The interesting situation was, that none of these computer fulfilled the requirements. Bascially spoken, the PC before the year 1992 was not powerful enough, and more powerful workstations like the NEXT computer were too expensive. Because of these reasons, the computer was a niche product and was used seldom. The best sign were perhaps the low quality monitors. Monitors before the year 1992 were typically black / white, and it wasn't possible to use them for reading longer text. Even advanced mainframe computers from this period weren't able to display simple graphics. And a soundcard wasn't invented yet.

So what sort of application were possible before the year 1992? Right, no one. Advanced media during that time were the printed book, printed magazine, the radio, television or the music CD. But computers were running with a low priority.

Around the year 1992 the situation has changed drastically. Overnight many progress was made. The hardware had become cheap, the performance of the computer was better and it was possible to do something with a computer. For example, typing in a text. From the perspective of the moores law, the year 1992 wasn't very different to other years. Similar to the years before, the expected improvement for computer hardware had become possible. The new thing was the provided technology was able to fufill the expectations of the users. Even if the PC was available before the year 1992 and even computer networks were used in the 1980s, after the year 1992 everything have become new and shiny.

The internet was born in 1992

 It is sometimes hard to determine at which date new technology was invented. In case of the printing press it took centuries until it was used widespread. Surprisingly the birth of the internet can be localized in time very precisely It was a development which was realized overnight and all around the globe at the same time.

It is not clear why exactly the internet was developed in parallel but according to the computer history there was a time in the past in which the new technology was available suddenly. To understand the situation we have to describe two periods: the time before the year 1992 and the time after the year 1992. Before the year 1992, computers were available but they were slow, not standardized and very important they were missing of networks.

A typical example from 1990 was an Amiga 500 homecomputer which was used mainly for playing games. The Amiga 500 was missing of everything: it had not built in harddrive, the resolution of the monitor was low and the processor speed was only 7 mhz. The interesting fact is that compared to more professional devices like a Vax minicomputer sold for millions of US$ the Amiga 500 was advanced.

Let us take a closer look at so called professional computing before the year 1992. Most universities were equipped with a main frame computer. The system was used for batch processing and it was connected with other mainframes over a 9.6kbit telephone connection. Such a system wasn't used for practical application because the disk storage capacity was low, the bandwith was too slow and the price for such technology was too high. That means, even the university was equipped with the most advanced computer hardware nobody was using it.

At least, this is the description for the period until the year 1992. The interesting situation was, that the development to more powerful computer technolgy was realized within a small time frame. In the beginning of the 1990s, the former homecomputers were replaced by standardized PCs. A PC in the year 1992/1993 was cheaper and more powerful than the computers before. At the same time, the professional mainframes were replaced by local area networks which were running with workstations. These workstations were connected over fast ethernet cables and were able to display high resolution graphics. Also it should be mentioned that around the same year, the price for transmitting a single gigabyte of information over the telephone line has become cheaper.

Like i mentioned before this development doesn't take place over decades, but it was introduced very fast. That means on december 1991 the computer technology was very slow and only six months later the internet was available.

From a longer perspective the situation was more complex. until the pc industry was born it took many years. During the 1980s, PC hardware and software was developed. Also the development of workstations and fast internet routers took a long time. But, all the technology was available at one point in time which was 1992. After this time, the restrictions were solved. That means, the industry was able to deliver cheap and fast computers which can be used for practical applications. From a hardware perspective, a typical PC in 1992 was equipped with a 386sx processor. This allows the user to run basic applications like simple games, spreadsheet documents and even databases. In addition, such a PC is working well in a local area network and very important the technology has become affordable.

The interesting situation is, that before the year 1992 the computer industry was in a poor condition. Sure, some hardware was available for example home computers, and also software was written in Assembly and C. But it was not possible to use this technology in a meaningful way. For example to write a letter or to send an email. In that time, computer technology was something which was only available in imagine. What was shown in Science fiction movies was not a available in the reality. 

Localizing the birth of the internet more precisely
The internet is a complex global computer system which was invented by many engineers. All the developments were united in a single year and into a single computer platform. It was exactly the year 1992 and the Intel 386SX PC which has made the internet possible.

Somebody may argue, that the internet was available in the 1980s already and that on a different hardware allows to connect to the internet as well. But a closer look will show, that only the combination of the year 1992 and the 386sx cpu has triggered the acceptance of a larger audience. It was some sort of sweet spot in which the technology was cheap enough and powerful enough at the same time so that the public went online.

Let us investigate some alternative hypothesis how the internet was born. Was it possible to use a home computer like the Commodore 64 to get access to the internet? no it wasn't possible because the homecomputers of the 1980s which includes 16bit machines like the Amiga 500 as well were not equipped with a hardrive and they wasn't capable of running even simple texteditors or telnet programs. Another interesting question is if mainframes from the 1980s were suitable for internet access. Technically it was possible to connect a supercomputer like the CM-2 with the internet. The problem was that this machine was very expensive. It was out of the reach for normal users. And the idea behind the internet is that not 10 or 100 users are geting access to online databases and e-mails but thousands and even millions. So the supercomputers of the 1980s were also not suitable for providing internet access.

Only the combination of a certain hardware performance, a cheap price and the availability of a network results into the well known internet. The year 1992 was the first year in history which combined all these elements. It can be interpreted as the year of birth of a complete new technology unknown before. The interesting fact is that the year after 1992 only little amount of improvement were available. Modern more advanced computers have improved the situation only in minor parts. That means, the difference between a text only webbrowser in 1992 and a text oly webbrowser in 2021 is small. A normal 386SX PC from that erea which is equipped with the lynx software plus an email program comes close to a more recent user's experience.

From a more pessimist standpoint the technology hasn't evolved that much from 1992. A simple isa network card from the past was able to provide 10 mbit connectivity. And this speed will serve today's Internet very well. What is known as the internet is unchanged since 30 years. It was improved only a minor parts. For example, the java language was invented, the h.264 videocodec has become available and wireless technology was added.

If the aim is to build some sort of prototype hardware which was able to act as a server and client as well, a standard desktop pc from the year 1992 works very well for this purpose. Even for today's requirements such a machine is more than capable of providing a technology known as the internet.

Let us summarize the specifications a bit: A 386sx pc is a 32bit processor which is faster than a 16bit processor. Also such hardware is sold for a low price so that a large amount of users can use the technology. In addition it is equipped with an ISA network card which is a standardized network for providing TCP/IP connectivity.

The interesting fact is, that before the year 1992 such computer technology wasn't available. It wasn't invented yet and therefor the internet was not available. What the computer users have done before the year 1992 was to use computers in a more specialized way. For example, an 8 bit homeomputer can be utlized to learn the BASIC programming language. While a pdp-11 like minicomputer can be utilized to create an UNIX operating system. What we know as the internet is the combination of all these elements into a single computer, sold for a low price.

[1] RetroTech Chris: Getting Started: Wireless Web Browsing in MS-DOS, 04.06.2020, youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH57bt-lU1Q

Some tools for developing Artificial Intelligence

 Classical non AI computer projects are created with tools. Well known software packages for creating new software are operating systems like Unix, programming languages like C++ and IDEs like the Emacs editor. These tools have become famous because they have become a framework for learning, teaching and improvement of computer science.

The problem in AI and robotics that the mentioned tools are useless. Sure, it makes sense to program a robot in C++, but any other programming language would make sense too. If the existing software tools are no longer valid what else can be preferred to develop a robot?

AI and robotics is working quite different from normal software programming. Instead of solving a problem, the idea is to create one. So called robot challenges are the preferred choice for a framework. A robot competition is an educational description for example a maze game. And the participants have to build and program a robot who can solve this task.

The interesting point is that most robot challenges are different and have evolved over the year. A certain challenge is asking for a certain hardware and software combination. For example in the micromouse challenge most of the robots are looking equal. The main reason why these competitions have become famous is because they are providing an easy to solve task. Entry level robot challenges are asking for a robot who can follow a line. Programming such a robot ca be realized in under 10 lines of code. More complicates challenges are demanding for a complete robot control system which consists of sensor perception, motor planning and GUI output.