Meadowlark: Sheffield based computer consultancy

Computer Upgrades

Is that computer replacement really necessary?

We can usually find ways of speeding up your current computer, perhaps with a memory upgrade, processor upgrade or new hard disk.  Sometimes we just need to make some changes to your software.  Alternatively we can advise you on suitable replacement PCs.  We can build you something from components of your choice or recommend a factory built pc.

If you are interested in some of the history of hardware and software you might want to read on.

Computers have become more powerful every year. According to Moores law, a computer scientist, computer processors double in performance every eighteen months. But do we need the extra performance that the newest processors provide? The answer to that is not straight forward.

For the majority of users, computers do not now fulfil a role that is very different to that of twenty years ago when we used computers with intel 8086 processors. We still write letters, use spreadsheets, and databases. What has changed is the sophistication of the software that we use to achieve these ends.

The software we use now allows us to multi-task (we can write a letter AND fill in a database at the same time). Well in fact this is not strictly true. I can only complete one computer task at a time, but the computer is happy to run two or more different processes; perhaps a wordprocessor process and a database process and so on. In fact multi-tasking is probably not the real reason why we need powerful computers.  

Charles Moore after all managed to produce multitasking operating systems with tiny FORTH software thirty years ago and so it is likely that we need very powerful computers for some other reason.  In fact the culprit is probably the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

The GUI that makes Microsoft Windows so familiar to us is particularly demanding of the computer hardware.  It uses something called event handlers.  These constantly monitor the state of the computer; the position of the mouse, whether and which buttons are pressed, whether a new record on the database has been created and so on, and whether the printer has run out of paper.  This takes lots of processor time.  A good example of a slow operating system (and GUI) is Microsoft Vista.  Vista monitors all these events and many others that we do not know about, but does it slowly.  Of course the other culprit for making older computers obsolete is the new breed of badly programmed software.

The most up-to-date software is so complex that only a very powerful processor, with lots of memory, and a fast hard disk, can run it.  The question you have to ask yourself  is whether you need to run the most recently available software, generally it does not offer you anything you really need to do your job.  If you do not then it is likely that your old computer with a quick spring clean, and some new memory will suffice.

The most popular use for computers nowadays is email and the web.  In fact these facilities require computers with only the most modest computing power.  Your mobile phone can fulfil these functions so why are you being forced into upgrading a PC.  The simple answer to this question is money.

It is very much in the interests of the computer industry to encourage users to upgrade both the software and hardware on a regular basis.  How, after all, will they make money?  I would argue that it is rarely in the interests of the user to take the upgrade path, which is so often fraught with problems.

What you can expect from computer hardware in the future?

1. Smaller faster, cheaper, lighter computers for the desktop.  They will be no larger than a DVD drive.  They will be silent, and run free software, and much of this will be web based.  They will use solid state disks, and large quantities of cheap memory.

2. More powerful mobile phones will largely replace traditional PCs.  The screens of mobiles will occupy as much of the phone as physicallly possible.  "Soft buttons will have largely replaced mechanical buttons in top of the range phones.

3. Sophisticated screen display technology will be available that will allow us to use bigger computer monitors in smaller less likely workplaces.

4. Micro-factories: places of work no bigger than a loft extension, where budding entrepreneurs labour in their free time "printing" products with 3D printers and selling their wares by the internet.