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DESKTOP COMPUTER MARKET.
Term Paper ID:21749
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Essay Subject:
Types, technology, competing firms, product lines, focusing on IBM-compatible 80486 & 80586 (Pentium), power, price, performance, future.... More...
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8 Pages / 1800 Words
6 sources, 11 Citations,
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Paper Abstract:
Types, technology, competing firms, product lines, focusing on IBM-compatible 80486 & 80586 (Pentium), power, price, performance, future.
Paper Introduction:
Introduction
There are three major classes of computers: mainframes, minicomputers and microcomputers. As computer technology has developed, the lines between these classes have blurred and each class has stretched its boundaries into the other. Today's desktop computers (microcomputers) are capable of performing calculations which 30 years ago would have been limited to the powerful mainframe computer class. This research examines the state of the microcomputer market and considers the current technology available, as well as where that technology is headed and the effect of that technology on decision makers.
Description of the Technology
Microcomputers are those systems which are commonly referred to as "desktop" computers. These systems were originally designed for individual us
Text of the Paper:
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As theRISC machines have entered the microcomputer arena, so the CISC machineshave moved up to enter the workstation client/server market. Thecombination of technology and the large number of microcomputers in usehave shaped the direction that the market has taken, however. 12 .Pountain, D. Modems, another critical component as the nation makes increaseduse of bulletin boards, the Internet and other on-line services, needlarger buffers with these machines, again in order to take full advantageof the machine's own power. A single-cycle fetch can beachieved by keeping all instructions at a standard size, which should beequal to the basic word length of the computing system. By the time a CISC system isdesigned, built and tested, it may become obsolete from the standpoint ofthe state of the art of the current computer technology, in whichsignificant advances occur on a frequent basis. Pentium systems are faster than the 486 system, and moreexpensive as a result. The Apple machines usemicroprocessor chips from Motorola, a competitor of Intel. If a company chooses to implement untried or unprovedtechnology, such as opting for the Power PC before the market accepts it,the company runs the risk that the hardware will become outdated and thecompany will have to change its hardware, and possibly its software,resulting in a significant and possibly unnecessary expenditure. When technology is first introduced,there are not many people who are knowledgeable about it, which means thatthey can command higher salaries. (1994, May 31). This research examinesthe state of the microcomputer market and considers the current technologyavailable, as well as where that technology is headed and the effect ofthat technology on decision makers. 8 ). This was not a proprietaryagreement, with the result that other hardware companies producedimitations of the IBM machine (clones) which were generally cheaper thanthe brand name, but which could run the same software. Logicsignals will usually have to move through a considerable number of gates,increasing the duration of delays and slowing down the system. Price remains a major factor with these machines, but one of the best-known clone makers, Dell, offers the Dell Dimension XPS P9 for $4,499.This system includes the features mentioned above, and includes a CD-ROMdrive (Montgomery, 1994, p. Impact of Technology on Decision Makers The complexity of the CISC system implies a long design time with asignificant probability of design errors. 65-67.Sandlund, C. While thissoftware runs well on the Pentium system, it does not exploit the fullpower of the machine (Montgomery, 1994, p. The large instruction set also presents too large a choice for thecompiler of most high level languages (HLLs). Another consideration that managers must take into account is theproficiency level of the labor force. The impact of technology on decision makers can be significant.Managers can choose the Apple or IBM-compatible microcomputers, and maychoose either CISC or RISC technology. For example, a 486 machine that includes a math co-processor(which speeds up complex calculations and processing), with 16 Mb of RAMand a 34 Mb hard drive can be purchased for under $25 . This is typicallyequal to the number of data lines in the system bus connecting the memory(where the program is stored) to the CPU. Datamation, pp. Participants in the software market who are seeking tomaintain their market share, such as Microsoft, are likely to producesoftware which runs on the most popular of the new technology. Initially two distinct architectures, CISC and RISC machines areincreasingly borrowing technology and strategies from each other. PC magazine, pp. This is a 66megahertz (MHz) machine that offers fast processing, and also includes a 17-inch color monitor for better performance and improved ease of use(Sandlund, 1994, p. Hard drives should have plenty of cache memory in order tokeep up with the system as a whole; without this, the extra performance islargely wasted. Thisdecision by software makers to favor particular hardware will have a long-term effect on the market. As the technology becomes morewidespread, salaries decrease somewhat as the supply of individuals capableof working with the new hardware and software increases. Major Products Currently Available Major products currently available use either Complex Instruction SetComputing (CISC) or Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) algorithms.RISC machines are faster than CISC machines, but have the problem ofincreased complexity and cost. (1994, June). The Last Bastion. This is software that runs in"native" mode. These drives cannot yet be usedfor writing information on most microcomputers, but greatly increase theamount of information which can be made available on a single disk(Ricciuti, 1994, p. UNIX servers approach PC prices. In amicroprogrammed environment, increased complexity will result in longermicroroutines and therefore longer execution time to produce all necessarymicro-operations and their control signals to execute an instruction. D. Apple does notlicense its operating system or other technology with the end result thatthere are not Apple clones available on the market. Fewer instructions mean that the machines should offerbetter performance than their CISC counterparts. As computer technology has developed, the linesbetween these classes have blurred and each class has stretched itsboundaries into the other. Among the critical pieces is Windows-based software which,in addition to the Windows software itself, also includes common wordprocessing, spreadsheet and graphics programs. (1994, July 15). 94.Miller, Michael J. This system uses the next level of Intel-based chip, the586 chip. For the purposes of this analysis, two types of IBM-compatiblemachines will be considered, the 8 486-based machine and the 8 586-machine(Pentium). (1992, June 1). Because the technology isexperience rapid growth and expansion, the decision that a manager makestoday may only be appropriate for a short time, particularly if the managerchooses cost over long-term potential. 112). However, while the Power PC is marketed as a RISCmachine, it uses more than 2 instructions in some cases, which is morethan traditional RISC machines, although not as many as CISC machines(Miller, 1994, p. Just in their infancy, these machines arediscussed in detail in the next section. The computers now have 1large hard drives (the main storage device), with drives of 25 megabytes(Mb) commonly available on both types of microcomputers, with drives aslarge as one gigabyte easily available. Bigger, better, faster. 112. For these reasons, and because it is difficult to predict whattomorrow's machines will be capable of with any certainty, managers mustmake the best decisions they can for their current and short-termmanagement information needs. Dream machines. Many Pentium systems runsoftware developed for the 386 and 486 generation of computers. The newly introducedPower Macintosh uses RISC technology, as does the yet-to-be introducedPower PC due from IBM. One of the most important principles in RISC design is that ofstreamlining and uniform handling of all instructions. As the microprocessor market has grown, the technology which supportsthat market has also expanded significantly. Product/Technology Improvements Under Development Complex Instruction Set Computers are microprogrammed, have arelatively large quantity of machine language instructions, addressingmodes, instruction formats and a number of possible instruction lengths.Such a large variety of possibilities of operations results in a highlycomplicated control unit in the CPU. ReferencesHof, R. The machines, for example, require carefulinternal ventilation, and most make use of heat sinks to assist in thisrequirement. This, in turn, makes it moredifficult to design the optimizing stage of a CISC compiler since thisstage has to be longer and more complicated in a CISC machine. However, there are problems with waiting until the market approves aparticular technology, and those problems are that the company loses on theincreased productivity that it otherwise would have had available to it hadit implemented systems earlier. 94). Managers musttherefore weigh the benefit they would receive from having new technologyfrom the outset against the higher hardware, software and labor costsassociated with such technology. Where most 486 systems are able to offer 66 MHztechnology, the Pentium systems are able to offer 9 MHz technology. The 8 486-based machines offer strong performance at reasonableprices. 12 ). The IBM machinesused a chip by Intel (the 8 x86 microprocessor), which Intel made availableto other manufacturers. Today's desktop computers (microcomputers) arecapable of performing calculations which 3 years ago would have beenlimited to the powerful mainframe computer class. Introduction There are three major classes of computers: mainframes, minicomputersand microcomputers. The result is that IBM machines and their clonescontrol the bulk of the microcomputer market (Hof, 1992, p. In addition the amount of RandomAccess Memory (RAM) has also grown to where 8 Mb is commonly available,with many "workhorse" systems sporting as much as 2 Mb initially,expandable to 128 Mb and higher. For example, a company may decide to investin a local area network that uses a Pentium server with 486 workstationsand determine that such a network will meet the company's needs for thenext five years. As RISC and CISC machines move closer together, software developerscan be expected to take advantage of the new potential that the machineshave to offer. When IBM introduced its personalcomputer in the early 198 s, it licensed its operating system (the softwarewhich controls the machine and provides an interface between applicationsoftware and the user) from Microsoft. The decision to go with new products or towait until the products are tested and proven in the market is one that isdependent on the company's particular environment and managementinformation needs. The Great Chip Race. Despite the high performance that the Pentium machines offer, theyalso have some drawbacks. The result is apowerful and cost-effective solution to many business and scientificcomputing problems. The philosophy behind such powerful components isthat users will want to take full advantage of the machine's speed andcapabilities (Montgomery, 1994, p. There are two main classes of microcomputers, those that are based onthe IBM PC and the Apple machines. 12 ). However, increased cache increases the cost of themachine. For example, if thebasic word size is 32 bits and the data part of the system bus has 32lines, the standard instruction length should be 32 bits. 12 ). System components such asmultimedia tools, which were once costly options, are now becomingrequirements as companies strive to take advantage of the options availableto them. 47-54.Ricciuti, M. Another drawback to the Pentium system at this point is that softwaredevelopers have not yet written a large suite of programs that can takefull advantage of the hardware capabilities. Making the wrong choice regarding microcomputers can be a costlydecision, particularly when large numbers of systems or people areinvolved. PC Computing, p. (1994, September). If software is not available for new orproprietary machines, it matters little whether they are faster or betterthan their competition. 94). In a complex system, such errorscan take a long time to find and correct. These peripherals with their exacting requirements do not comecheaply, and can significantly increase the cost of the machine. ThePentium systems are also able to support more advanced components, with theresult that Pentium systems can be found which have 16 Mb of RAM standard,and 424 Mb hard drives. The other IBM-compatible system that is currently available is thePentium system. Byte, pp. Business Week, p. Thepipelining strategies in particular offer a strong example of this. In recent years, microcomputers have become powerful enough toperform as network servers, with the result that a single microcomputer canhave many other microcomputers connected to it, each able to accessinformation on any combination of the other machines. 65). The other significant participant in the microcomputer market is AppleComputer, whose Macintosh product has become a favorite among graphicdesigners and educational institutions, but which has yet to makesignificant progress in the business market. RISC is a newer technology than CISC and, in theory, uses no more than128 instructions. At any fetch cycle, a completesingle instruction will be transferred to the CPU. Inaddition, the results of this optimization may not yield the most efficientand fastest machine language code. The DigitalEquipment DECpc Lpx 466d2 has a list price of $2,248. Such a timeframe would be largely arbitrary, particularlywhen compared to the state of the microcomputer industry five years ago,when 386 machines were the state-of-the-art PC-compatibles, but today arebarely able to run the most popular software programs (Hof, 1992, p. (1994, June). In this case, thefetch and execute stages take up the same time for any instruction;ideally, this is a single clock cycle. 79-8 .Montgomery, J. The 486 machines are a critical offering currently because of thelarge amount of software that is already written for them that can takeadvantage of the system architecture. This chip battle royal. Cache memory has also become a majorproduct differentiator, with technology moving along swiftly in thatcategory and the result being better performance (Pountain, 1994, p. A CISC with a large feature selection implies a larger and morecomplicated decoding subsystem preceding the complex control logic. PC computing, p. In addition, tape backup systems become anecessity in order to provide sufficient protection for these largesystems. Description of the Technology Microcomputers are those systems which are commonly referred to as"desktop" computers. These systems were originally designed for individualusers to perform tasks that were once relegated to minicomputers ormainframes. 48).In addition to floppy diskette drives which can support floppy disks withjust over one Mb of data, many microcomputers now have CD-ROM (Read OnlyMemory) drives which read compact disks.
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