Communication Technology Update, 10/e, 10th Edition

10

PERSONAL COMPUTERS

Chris Roberts, M.A.*

Three decades ago, just like today, a flight between New York and Paris would take about seven hours and cost about $900. If advances in air travel matched the pace of computer transistor development, that international jaunt would take a second and cost a penny (Intel, 2004). Such are the advances in the technology of personal computers—and the rapid acceptance of computers by a generation of young people who have always lived in homes and attended schools with computers.

Consider that:

Computer sales are rising nearly every year. In 1983, when Time magazine declared the computer its “Machine of the ...