Questions about computers, please? Please accept my thanks in advance?

Could you please tell me how long we have had computers as we know them today, with all the desktop equipment, the software, and the printers, and all the databanks or websites with all the information.....in other words, about what point in time did they settle down with the design we have today?



Another question: If I buy a laptop, does it function as well as a desktop, especially regarding the high-quality color printing? The desktop to which I have access right now has a terrific printer, and I am plain spoiled! And "Wordpad"?



Third question: Will I be able to take a laptop that I purchase here in the US to India with me, or should I buy another one there? I will be in a very good spot for purchasing computers, so that is no problem.



Last, with regards to what functions on a worldwide level, the whole thing fits a standard, is that not so? Unlike electrical connections and attachments for garden hoses, world standards for computers are the same? Tnx!

Questions about computers, please? Please accept my thanks in advance?
Hobbyist computers with the configuration you're used to seeing emerged in the early and mid-1970s. That would be a CPU, keyboard, monitor, and printer. The software was very different and much more primitive. The earliest hobbyist computers loaded a program by toggling switches on the front panel! But simple programs that would load, first from a floppy disk and then later from a hard drive were available by about 1975. (CP/M, "Control Program for Microcomputers", was one of the first operating systems. It has some similarities to MS-DOS.)



Something you would recognize as a "modern" computer was standardized with the first IBM PC, in the early 1980s. A user interface with "windows" first appeard on the Apple Macintosh (actually, first on the Apple LISA) a couple of years later. By 1990, PCs with Microsoft Windows 3.1 were commonplace.



The internet was around since the 1960s, but in a form you would hardly recognize. It started becoming what it is today with the development of the World Wide Web about 1993-1994.



Any laptop would hook up to your printer the same as a desktop. You might find some things to be less convenient on a laptop, but whether or not it matched the desktop's functionality would vary by application.



You could take a laptop to India, provided you had the right power adapter. I couldn't tell you what the Indian computer market is like, but I'd suppose you could get most anything there that you could here.



There are many, many standards for computers. Some are global, others are hardly used anywhere, others are heavily used but only in certain niches for computers. But the Internet is the internet, and once you're on it and using a common browser, it's pretty much the same everywhere.
Reply:A laptop will have no effect on your printing. It will connect to the same great printer you have been using with your desktop.



You can take you laptop to India, you may need to buy a plug adapter for your power supply.
Reply:IBM personal computers have had this design since 1984.



Mac got the GUI (Graphical OS in around late 80s)



PC got windows 95 (first complete gui os ) in 95



Laptop will work well .. If taking to India make sure u get global warranty.. the connector wont be a problem.. u can get the correct cable in india real cheap
Reply:1) Well, the first PC's apeared around 1980's courtesy of IBM in that years Bill Gates was cooking Microsoft DOS and the company as well, the first Windows came courtesy of Steve Jobs (Apple Co.) stealing XEROX primitive OS Idea and a strange device (For those days) called a MOUSE, then Billy boy steal it from Jobs ;) and the rest is history!!.



2) The printer is making the job not the laptop, the laptop only format your documents and the printer makes the the rest.



3) Yes you can take your US Bought Laptop no matter what.



4) Yes, like another electrical equipment but this time you have to take a little more precautions.
Reply:we have a standard for garden hose attachments over here in lamborghini country.
Reply:I can tell you that the current PC architecture was developed by IBM back in the early 80's. The first released for sale machine was in 1982. The architecture of current PC's is still very much the same as it was back then with the exception of additonal busses such as EIDE, SATA, PCI, PCIe, USB, and at one time, VESA, which died. The IDE structure is still the same as it was in 1982. Drives built in 1982 could still work, from a bus structure point of view, in todays PCs. The restriction, or limiting factor is the software. Newer software probably won't recognize some of those older drives.
Reply:The Apple I %26amp; II, the TRS-80, the Commodore Pet were all in the mid 70's...a few years before the IBM PC in 81. Wozniak and the Apple I %26amp; II really inspired what we have today. He was the first to build a computer that actually did something useful to common people. If you look at an Apple II now, you can see how it influenced the form factor today.