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Computers have changed a huge amount over a short period of time, but surprisingly there are a lot of things that are still exactly as they were decades ago. At the very core, computers still use processors, RAM, hard drives, and other components - all interacting with binary data and executing instructions in "Machine Code". However, beyond this, a huge amount has changed.

A long time ago, back in the 1960s, the very first "modern" computers didn't even use a monitor - a lot of computers utilised a "printer terminal" - so every command you entered would cause the result to be printed out, line by line, on paper. So, you could argue, having a screen is a big change over time for computing.

More recent changes include:

  • The use of graphical user interfaces. We take for granted that we use a mouse to click on icons and menus on a screen with Windows and a desktop - but this wasn't always the case. For a long time, computers used a "Command Line Interface" - which you can still see today by opening a command prompt on a Windows PC, or a Terminal on a Mac. (Or if you're using Linux, you're almost certainly already familiar with a terminal). Here, users would type commands to tell the computer what to do - so, opening a folder called "Games" on your hard drive would mean you'd have to type something like:

    C:\>cd C:\games

    rather than just clicking on a folder icon.

  • The amount of memory and speed of operation has increased by staggering amounts. Personally, I owned a computer in 1993 which was an ICL 286 workstation. It had an 8MB hard drive, and a processor that ran at 12 megahertz. Today, most processors run with multiple "cores", at 3 or 4 gigahertz - over a thousand times faster - and use terabyte hard drives (that's over a million times larger than a megabyte).
  • Easily, though, the biggest change to computing has been the internet. Today, it's almost unthinkable of using a computer which is not connected to the net - for downloading files, sending emails, even asking questions on this site. This certainly wasn't always the way, though. The internet and the World Wide Web really started becoming popular in the early 90s - prior to this, computers would at most either be networked to each other locally, or dial in to just one service at a time, using services like "Telnet". If you were to travel back in time to the 1980s and show the average computer user then a computer from today, the internet would easily be the most staggering thing for them to see. Most other advances like high resolution LCD screens or bigger hard drives would seem like logical advances - but the internet was truly revolutionary from a computing perspective.
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9y ago

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More answers

I know that computers are alot smaller today but, what are other differences?

they are easier to carry around and to use as well as store information.

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Wiki User

14y ago
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the difference is the old computar is better it has a bigger hard drive and they may Evan look cooler (spray paint)

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Wiki User

13y ago
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Well for one, the computers of the past were huge. And slow. Inversely, the computers of today are smaller and many times as powerful as early computers.

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Wiki User

16y ago
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becouse todays technoly developed than past

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Wiki User

13y ago
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computers yesterday is too old and explodes to much. computers today are too new and will not work properly.

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Wiki User

12y ago
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Q: What is the difference between the computers yesterday and the computers today?
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