Computer History Essay

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Ok i did this in 4 days only 1.5 hours a day for a total of 6 hours! here it is:
Computers have come a long way. From a 10 megabyte hard drive, to a 1 terabyte hard drive, this is about 10,000 times as big. From Intel’s original Pentium to the newest Core 2 Extreme. Also Advanced Micro Devices’ K5 to the newest Quad FX. First we shall start with Intel.
The Pentium was first shipped March 22, 1993 and was produced until 1999. It had a CPU speed of a 60 Mhz and maxed out at 300 Mhz. It also had a FSB Speed of 50 to 66 Mhz.
The Pentium Pro was introduced in November 1995. It had a CPU Speed of 150 Mhz to 200 Mhz. And a FSB speed of 60 to 66 Mhz. It used socket 8, and was supposed to replace the Pentium, but was too expensive and became a very high end processor that was mainly used in servers. Also the popular operating systems, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95, were all 16-bit operating systems and the Pentium Pro was a 32-bit. Basically you were trying to fit something into a hole half its size. The Pentium Pro was able to be used; however there was only 1 choice to use it on. That choice was the Window NT 3.51. Eventually it was replaced by the Pentium 2. The Pentium 2 was a cost reduced and renamed Pentium Pro with 16-bit processing instead of 32-bit. The CPU speed of the Pentium 2 was 233 Mhz to 450 Mhz, and the FSB of the Pentium 2 was 66 to 100 Mhz. The Pentium 2 Overdrive was the last upgrade for Socket 8 users or Pentium Pro users.
The Celeron was first introduced in April 1998. It was based on the Pentium 2 core, and had a CPU speed of 266 Mhz- 3.6 Ghz. It also had a FSB speed of 66 Mhz to 133 Mhz. They made a “Celeron 2” but they still called it Celeron, but its code name was Coppermine-128. Then they made the “Celeron 3” or the “Celeron S” depending on who you talk to. The Celeron 3 had a Taulatin-256 core which was basically a newer Pentium 2. Finally they introduced the Celeron D, which is still around today. The “D” in Celeron D didn’t stand for anything, unlike the “D” in Pentium D stood for “dual-core.” The first Celeron D core was known as the Willamette-128. The top Willamette-128 were basically the low end Pentium 4 processors. After that they came out with the Northwood-128, which was the same as the Willamette-128, but used socket 478, instead of 370. The Prescott-256 was a small upgrade to the Northwood-128. Finally the Cedar Mill-512 was basically a Prescott-256 except for the newest socket LGA 775. They also have a mobile version of the Celeron, called the Celeron M. It is a smaller processor to fit into laptops.
Eventually they refocused back on their flagship, the Pentium. They released the Pentium 3 in March 2000. And they made them from 1999-2003. The CPU Speed ranged from 450 Mhz to 1.4 Ghz. Also the FSB speed ranged from 100 Mhz to 133 Mhz. They used Socket 1 and 370, the first using socket 1 and the Coppermine and Tualatin using socket 370. The Coppermine-T was supposed to use the socket 370 but was cancelled.
Intel also had a processor for servers at the time. It was called the Itanium. The Itanium was produced from June 2001 till June 2002. All it ever became was a failure and a stepping stone to the next failure, the Itanium 2. The Itanium 2 was introduced July 8, 2002 but was soon killed off by the Xeon.
The Xeon is Intel’s current brand of server processors. The only difference between the normal processors and the servers is that the servers have more cache. The Xeon was first released 1998, as the Pentium 2 Xeon, which replaced the Pentium Pro as the server processor of Intel. However in 1999 the Pentium 2 Xeon was replaced by the Pentium 3 Xeon. Nothing was different between the original Pentium 3 Xeon (which was codenamed “Tanner”) and the last of the Pentium 2 Xeon except for the CPU speed. The second Pentium 3 Xeon was codenamed “Cascades,” and there was no difference between it and a Pentium 3. In 2001, the Pentium Xeon brand dropped the Pentium from its name and became Xeon. In 2004, Intel released the new Xeon which was based on the Pentium 4’s core. The Pentium 4’s core was named Northwood. Also with Itanium and Itanium 2 being major failures, Nocona was released as the new core for the Xeon. Nocona supported PCIe (which was basically a faster version of PCI), DDR-2 (A faster RAM than DDR), and a new connector type called SATA (Serial ATA). Since then they have released quad-core and dual-core Xeons.
The Pentium 4 had a completely new design, the first since the Pentium Pro. It was the first to attempt to look like a dual-core processor, with its Hyper-Threading Technology. The CPU speed of the Pentium 4 was 1.3 Ghz- 3.8 Ghz, and had a FSB speed of 400 Mhz- 1066 Mhz. The Pentium 4 used sockets 423, 478 and LGA 775. It was released in November 2000, with the CPU speeds of 1.4 and 1.5 Ghz. In January 2001, Intel released a 1.3 Ghz model, and in April they released a 1.7 Ghz model. Then in July 2001, they released 1.6 and 1.8 Ghz models, and in August 2001 the 1.9 and 2.0 Ghz models were released. The 2.0 Ghz was the first to challenge Advanced Mirco Devices' Athlon Thunderbird. In response to the challenge they released the Athlon XP in October 2001, and Intel released Pentium 4 with the Northwood core in the same month. The Pentium 4 with the Northwood core ran at 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.2 Ghz. However this new Northwood came at a price to consumers, the fact of having to buy a new socket 478 motherboard. Later in April 2002, Intel released the 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4, adn in August that year they released the 2.6 and 2.8 Ghz models. Finally in November 2002, in an attempt to shove Advanced Micro Devices out of the market they released a new processor that ran at 3.06 Ghz Pentium 4 with Hyper-Threading Technology. Hyper-Threading Technology was a bad attempt to make a cheap dual-core processor. Xeon processors were the first to have Hyper-Threading Technology. In April 2003, Intel released an even faster, not in CPU speed, but rather in FSB speed. It raised the speed from 533 to an amazing 800 Mhz FSB. In September 2003, Intel released the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, just a week before Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 64 and Athlon FX. The
It was offically retired on July 27, 2006.

In April 2003, Intel released an even faster Pentium 4 processor, not in CPU speed, but in FSB speed. They increased it from 533, to an amazing 800 Mhz FSB.
In September 2003, Intel released the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, just a week before the Advance Micro Devices' Athlon 64 and Athlon FX. The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition was a combonation of the current Xeon and current Pentium 4 processors. It used the Pentium 4's socket, so people wouldn't have to upgrade, but used the Xeon's core design. In late 2004, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition got a FSB speed boost from 800 Mhz, to 1066 Mhz. Also the CPU speed increased from 3.46 to 3.73 Ghz.
In Febuary 2004, many people were shocked when Intel didn't name their new product Pentium 5. They changed the the core to Prescott. Prescott was a hotter processor, literally. When you ran it, you got approxamently 40% more heat. When they tried to swap sockets, to LGA 775, it only increased the power consumption by 10%. Finally Intel decided to shut down prescott all together.
After a while, Intel decided to try some tweaking with the Prescott core and came up with the Prescott 2M. They have only released two processors running at 3.6 and 3.8 Ghz.
Since the Prescott 2M wasn't all that great, they tried some more tweaking and combining, they came up with the Cedar Mill core. The Cedar Mill core was the final core for the Pentium 4. They lowered the heat output from the Prescott and made the cache the same as in the Prescott 2M. Eventually Pentium 4 was supposed to be replace by Tejas. However it wasn't power efficent at all, so they scrapped it. They were replaced by Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition.
The Pentium D was introduced on 5/26/07 and the world changed forever. The first dual-core processor was aviable to buy, and it was called the Pentium D. The CPU speed have ranged from 2.66 Ghz to 3.73 Ghz. The FSB was 533 Mhz to 800 Mhz. The original Pentium Ds ran at 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2 Ghz. Later on Intel introduced another Pentium D. This Pentium D ran at 2.66 Ghz and had a FSB of 533 Mhz, and was a favorite among overclockers. It could run at a speed of 3.5 Ghz with only average air cooling, and possibly running at 4 Ghz with water cooling. It was the cheapest of the Pentium D, but outpreformed all others. However these Pentium D do not support Hyper-Threading Technology. Later the Pentium Extreme Edition was introduced in the 2nd quarter of 2005, and was a Pentium D with Hyper-Threading. The next step was a good mobile processor to take over from the juice sucking Pentium M.
The Core Duo and Core Solo were released on January 5, 2006. It used 25 watts per hour and was the lowest for its time, which made it perfect for laptops. It replaced the Pentium M, since it was faster and had a better power efficiency. Then Apple, started using Core Duo processors in their products. It was a huge step in the right direction for them. The Core brand runs at a range of 1.06 Ghz to 2.33 Ghz. The main difference between the Core Solo and Core Duo is that the Core Solo is really a Core Duo with only power being supplied to one core. This saved Intel a bunch of money and worked out just fine. Then it was the time for the Core line to shine.
The Core line got retired on July 27, 2006 and was replaced by the Core 2 Duo was released and on July 29, 2006 the Core 2 Extreme was released. The Core 2 Duo were a little less energy efficient but, made up for it with amazing speed while still using less power than the Pentium M. With desktops however, they replaced the Pentium brand as the flagship of Intel. Intel has said that they are going to be releasing a newer line of the Core 2 Duo processors, this time with 1,333 Mhz FSB instead of 1,066 FSB. The term “Extreme” was used to tell the best of the Core 2 Duos.
With Intel being ahead of Advanced Micro Devices at the time, they decided to top themselves, with the new Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Extreme. And on November 2, 2006 they just did that. The new Core 2 Extreme was a new quad-core and the “Extreme” in Core 2 Extreme just meant that it was the best of that line, just as before. It was superior to Advanced Micro Devices’ current quad-core by the was that it went into 1 socket, compared to Advanced Micro Devices’ 2 sockets. At that there was only 1 motherboard to house the Advanced Micro Devices’ quad-core. Intel is supposed to be working on a Octa-Core processor right now. Also it will be 2 of the quad-cores on 1 chip that would be in 1 socket. Next we will talk about Advanced Micro Devices.
The K5 wasn’t all that popular when it was introduced in 1995, but some people call it a stepping stone to the K6.
The K6 was launched in 1997 and was designed to fit into a Pentium slot and was a cheap alternative. NexGen was designing it when Advanced Micro Devices’ acquired them and made the K6 fit socket 7 and use MMX. NexGen was trying to create their own socket before they were acquired. The K6 was originally running at 166 Mhz and 200 Mhz in April 1997. In the summer they introduced a 233 Mhz version, but it wasn’t released until the spring of 1998. The K6 took its final stand with a 300 Mhz processor in 1998.
The K6-2 was a faster K6 and ran at 233-550 Mhz. They used Socket 7 or Super Socket 7.
Was the fastest of all the Socket 7 processors, and was the fastest processor at release time. The K6-3 was a K6-2 with additional cache. The 500 Mhz and faster K6-3 were damaging motherboards by the amount of energy it took. When Advanced Micro Devices released the Athlon, the K6 was lost for good for the reason that it was too pricy to make. Another thing that made the K6 go out was the release of Intel’s Pentium 3 with a Coppermine core, and when Intel couldn’t make enough Pentium 3 processors with Coppermine cores some people went to Advanced Micro Devices and went with Athlon. That caused the Athlon factories to be stretched beyond belief and in result they changed K6 factories to make Athlons.
Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon was their version of Intel's Pentium. The Athlon used Slot A and Socket A. It debut on June 23 1999. It had CPU speeds of 500 Mhz to 2.33 Ghz. It also had FSB speeds of 100 Mhz to 200 Mhz. The Athlon was a creation of ex-DEC engineers and Advanced Micro Devices' engineers. DEC had had layoffs in 1998 after their merger with Compaq. The two groups of engineers took Advanced Micro Devices' K5 and K6 with the DEC Alpha 21264, and as a result came out with the Athlon. The Athlon was the first multiplier-locked processors from Advanced Micro Devices. The reason behind that is because some people over clocked them too much and fried the processor, while others just over clocked it and put a new sticker on it and called it their own. The Athlon was considered the best from August 1999, till January 2002. The Intel shortages help that a lot. The parts for their new Pentium 3 were in high demand and computer manufactures couldn't get their hands on them, so many went to Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon. The prices were right and the performance was better. Then their demand went up so high, they had to stop making K6's to make more Athlons. On June 6th 2000, Advance Micro Devices released a new Athlon. This time with a Thunderbird core. The Athlon with a Thunderbird core was the most successful processor since their Am386DX-40, which was ten years earlier. In October 2000, Advanced Micro Devices released their Athlon "C," which doubled their FSB speed to 266, from 133 Mhz. In October 9th, 2001 Advanced Micro Devices released their 3rd Athlon, using the Palomino core. These had CPU speeds of 1333 to 1533 Mhz. Also with this new core they focused on power consumption and made it consume 20% less power than before. This Palomino core was first released as a mobile processor. It was called Mobile Athlon 4. In October, they released their desktop version called Athlon XP. After that they released their next generation (codenamed Thoroughbred), and there were 2 different versions of this. Most of the time people called these versions A and B. A was introduced at 1800 Mhz and had some heat issues. After that they only sold the 1333 Mhz to 1800 Mhz versions, which replaced the Palomino. The B version had an additional layer of metal. B also had higher clock speeds, which ran at 2250 Mhz. Later B replaced the XP line-up. In early 2003 they released the fifth generation of Athlons. These were codenamed Barton, and the 2500+ was the most popular because it could be over clocked to the most expensive 3200+. This caused short life from the lower end Barton Athlons. At this time Intel was catching up and that didn't bother them because they were focusing on their new Athlon 64.
When it was released June 19, 2000, the Duron was known as the cheap alternative to the Athlon. It rival from Intel was the Celeron. The original Duron used the same socket (Socket A) as the Advanced Micro Devices’ Athlon. The Duron was produced from 2000 till 2001. The original Duron ran at 100 Mhz FSB, while the Athlon (codenamed Thunderbird) ran at 133 Mhz FSB. The original Duron ran from 500 Mhz to 950 Mhz. Later the Duron (codenamed Morgan) ran at 133 Mhz FSB and the Athlon ran at 166 or 200 FSB. The Duron (codenamed Morgan) ran at a CPU speed of 900-1300 Mhz. Later in 2004, Duron was discontinued and replaced by Sempron.
The Sempron was created to replace the Duron, and was used as the alternative to Intel’s Celeron, Celeron D, and Celeron M. The Sempron uses Socket A, 754, 939 and AM2. They have stopped making the Socket A Semprons. They run at a CPU speed of 1.4 to 2.2 Ghz and have a FSB speed of 166 to 200 Mhz. The first Semprons were a mix of Thoroughbred, Thorton cores, along with the Athlon XP. So basically they just renamed the Athlon XP. The only differences in the second generation of Semprons with the Paris and Palermo cores, is they were based on Socket 754 Athlon 64 and had HyperTransport. HyperTransport is Advanced Micro Devices’ version of Hyper Threading. In the second half of 2005, Advanced Micro Devices released a new Sempron, this one with 64-bit technology. Some people call this the Sempron 64. In 2006, they changed the socket again this time to Socket AM2.
The Turion 64 is the laptop processor from Advanced Micro Devices. The Turion used to compete with the Pentium M, but now competes with Core and Core 2. The Turion uses Socket 754, and has 800 Mhz HyperTransport FSB, along with being one of the best processors for battery life. There is also a dual-core version of the Turion 64 called the Turion X2. The Turion X2 was released May 17, 2006 and were also intended to compete with Intel’s Core and Core 2 lines. However these use socket S1 and have even more power saving functions.
The Operton was designed to compete with the Intel Xeon processor. It was released on April 22, 2003. It was also the first to use AMD 64. They have motherboards that will support up to 8 processors Operton processors. Next is the Motorola and the PowerPC processors
Originally created in 1991, by the Apple-IBM-Motorola alliance know as AIM. These processors were originally created for personal computers, but have been used in high end products that are not intended for changing from the original configuration such as the Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii. They were used primarily in Apple’s Macintosh line up from 1994 to 2006. Then Apple changed to Intel’s processors. The original POWER processor came from the prototype 801 from IBM. This started the race with IBM for the America Project which is still going on today. The America Project is to see who has the fastest computer out there. When the creators of PowerPC processors, IBM, approached Apple to form an alliance for making a better chip, Apple asked long time friend Motorola to join in. This created the AIM alliance. In 1991, the 3 had to stay together because of the factor that Microsoft and Intel were growing at an extremely high rate. At that time Microsoft was using Intel 80386 and 80486 chips, and the Pentium was well underway. At the time Motorola was already making processors and one of them was the 88000 was being easily defeated by everbody. But they were succeeding with their 68000. So they took the POWER processor and the 88000 processor and created the PowerPC processor. They were welcomed when they entered the market so much that Microsoft created Windows NT 3.51 and made it work with the PowerPC processors. Sun Microsystems offered their Solaris operating system and IBM promoted its AIX Unix, while they planned their release of OS/2. The PowerPC processor was always the best or tied for the best in the mid-1990, even with Intel’s processors. However Motorola and IBM were also working on their own projects. Motorola was working on their PowerQUICC processors and IBM was working on their 4xx series. Towards the end of the decade, Motorola released their G3 and G4 processors and went out of the processors business. Then IBM released the G5 in 2003 and exited the embedded processors industry. They sold their industry to Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC). Then they focused in on powerful processors using the PowerPC design for systems like the Nintendo GameCube and Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3, and Microsoft’s XBOX 360. In 2006, Apple announced that they would no longer use PowerPC processors in their computers and instead use Intel Processors. Next we have computer manufactures.
eMachines was founded in 1998, the founders were KDS and TriGem. KDS made monitors and TriGem made computers in Korea. They started with $400, $500, and $600 machines without monitors. At that time, machines were a minimum of $700, and more commonly $1000. The company offered large rebates along with other ways to drive down the price like internet. In 1999, eMachines made the Windows alternitive to the Imac. They called it the Eone, they got sued over it though. Also by 2000, eMachines drove many value oriented companies from the American market. Those had included IBM, and Packard Bell. In March 2000, eMachines went into the stock market and the stocks started at $9. But they had their ups and downs, including going down to 14 cents, and maxing out at $10. Soon after they went private. They have changed their parts from the cheapest parts on the face of the earth, to not the best but, almost. In December 2003, eMachines released their first mass-marketed Advanced Micro Devices computer, the T6000. It used the Athlon 64 3200+, had 512 MB RAM, a CD burner, DVD reader dual drive, 160 GB hard drive, and the ATI Radeon 9600. It sold well till 2004, when it became out of date. eMachines were also the first to sell laptops with the Mobile Athlon 64 processor. On January 30, 2004, Gateway said that they were intending to purchase eMachines for $30 million and 50 million shares. That valued at $234.5 million. eMachines still sells computers today. If you are in the market for a cheap computer, go with eMachines, they will give you more bang for your buck and their tech support is rated better than Dell's in Consumer Reports.
Gateway was orginally called Gateway 2000, and was founded on September 5, 1985 on a farm outside Sioux City, Iowa. They had an advertisement that said “computers from Iowa?” Gateway was the first widely successful computer manufacture, which Dell copied their model. They shipped their computers in cow spotted boxes and still do today. On December 31, 1998 they dropped the “2000” from their name. Amiga was the major part supplier for Gateway from 1997 to 2000. On April 1, 2004, Gateway said that they would shut down their remaining 188 stores. On March 11, 2004 Gateway bought eMachines. Who had a good way of cutting cost and that would help Gateway make money. They have made plasma screen TVs, DLP projectors, digital cameras, wireless internet routers and MP3 players, which none were very successful. They have outsourced their customer support, and sells third-party devices via their online store. Gateway has made an alternative to the IMac G5, but was not sued over it like eMachines because it looked completely different and Apple stopped making the IMac at the time. If you are looking to spend on something better than what eMachines has in their selection, go with Gateway, they have the ability to use eMachines tech support and that makes them much better.
Dell is an American based computer manufacture that started in Austin, Texas with a different name. That name was PC’s Limited. Until recently they were the biggest computer manufacture in the world, but now they are ranked second behind Compaq/Hewlett Packard/Voodoo PC. They are ranked 25th in America in the 2006 edition of Fortune 500. It was also ranked at 8th in the race for most admired companies, by Fortune 500. Originally in 1994, Dell was supposed to be the only Windows family computer out there, but after the “Perperation Consideration Gala,” Microsoft decided it was best to allow multiple companies run the Windows family. You can buy “bare-bones” computers but they are only available upon request and not on the site. Dell has recently expressed interest in offering the new Intel version of Mac OS X, but Apple says that it will only be available through Apple. Recently Dell purchased the biggest gaming machine maker out there, Alienware. Alienware competes with Falcon Northwest, Velocity Micro, and Voodoo PC (Voodoo PC is part of the Hewlett-Packard franchise) and Dell’s XPS before they were bought out by them on March 22, 2006. This is a company that charges too much for a computer, they have great warrenties, but by the time the computer is 2 years old you need to buy a new one, unless you spend at least $2000 on it or get the XPS. At that, they have horrible tech support and are over rated.
Packard Bell was originally a radio manufacture founded in 1926. In 1968 Teledyne bought them. In 1986, Beny Alagem and some investors bought them from Teledyne and started making low cost computers. These were an alternative to the IBM PCs, and were one of the first. They were sold in places such as Sears. They didn’t always have a good reputation, well they had a bad reputation more than they had a good one. In 1995, they were accused of recycling computer parts and recycling them. Also they used very odd form factors, such as the Intel’s LPX, which made upgrades or replacements close to impossible to come by. They also used items that were only sold in combo packs and that if the cheap part like the driver was lost, you would have to buy a whole new one. One example of that is the Aztech Corporation sound card and modem combo. This was an ISA card, and if you lost the drivers, you had to buy a new card and modem. In 1996 they acquired Zenith Data Systems, and that had them integrated into NEC Computers and took the lead. They then lost the lead to Compaq not even a year later. In 2000, Packard Bell withdrew from the American computer business completely. In 2004, they released their MP3/WMA player the “AudioDream”.
Toshiba's headquarters is located in Tokyo Japan, and are the 7th largest integrated manufacturer of electric and electronic equipment in the world. Toshiba was founded by the merger of Tanaka Seizosho (Tanaka Engineering Works) and Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric) in 1939. Toshiba was a maker for many of Japan's firsts, including radar in 1942, TAC digital computer 1954, transistor television and microwave oven in 1959, color video phone in 1971, Japanese word processor in 1978, MRI system in 1982, personal laptop computer 1986, NAND EEPROM in 1991, DVD in 1995, the Libretto sub-notebook personal computer in 1996, and HD-DVD in 2005. In 1987 however, Toshiba was accused of selling CNC milling machines to the USSR. This was a violation of the CoCom agreement, which lead to the execution of 2 senior executives. Senator John Heinz, the late former husband of Teresa Heinz-Kerry said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million." In December 2004, Toshiba announced that they would stop making the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube, or the really fat televisions) in 2006. They refocused on their new technology on SED Televisions, which is a flat panel Television that takes less power. In July 2005, BNFL decided to sell Westinghouse, and Toshiba bought it.
Compaq was founded in February 2002 by 3 senior managers from Texas Instruments, and was an alternative to the IBM PCs. The name "COMPAQ" was derived from "Compatibility and Quality." Their first computer was sketched out on a placemat in a local dinner called House of Pies. In 1982, they announced their first computer, the Compaq Portable. In March 1983, they released the Compaq Portable for $2995. It looked like a mixture of a fat laptop, desktop and small for factor desktop. It sold 53,000 units in its first year. The only reason they were able to do this is because Microsoft had retained the rights to their software and Compaq made their own parts. The only thing that was the same was the BIOS, which they duplicated by taking apart the bios and rebuilding it, using many of the key items. It cost them 1 million and was legal. In June 28, 1984, Compaq released their Deskpro 286. It was an 8 Mhz Intel Processor, with a max of 7Mb of RAM. It cost $2000 for the 40 Mb Hard drive model, which was faster than the IBM PC AT, which ran at 6 Mhz and the Compaq Deskpro was capable of running IBM programs. After making an half million on the Deskpro, they made the Compaq Portable 2, which was lighter, had a 10 Mb Hard Drive, and an 8 Mhz processor. It was also cheaper than the IBM PC/AT at $3199 for no hard drive, or $4799 with a hard drive. In 1986, they came out with the Deskpro 386, which had used Intel’s newest processor. IBM finally came out with one using the same processor 7 months later. In the early 1990s, Compaq entered the personal computer area with the Presario, and it was the first computer with a price tag of under $1000. In order to do that, they started using processors from Advanced Micro Devices and Cyrix (the people that make Texas Instruments processors). They drove many people from this market, mainly Packard Bell and IBM. They eventually merged with Hewlett-Packard in 2002.
Hewlett-Packard is located in Palo Alto California. Hewlett-Packard is specialized in computing, printing, and digital imaging, and also provides software and services. The company started with Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard on January 1, 1939. They started making any type of electric item possible, including signal generators, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, counters, and other test equipment. Now, they make decent computers, but are pricey. They are the main person in the Lightscribe industry.
Acer is a computer manufacture out of Taiwan, which was one of the top 5 computer vendors by 2004. It’s only second in Taiwan to Asus. They use generic parts and their tech support doesn’t know anything.
Sony has their own small and expensive computer manufactures. They are called Sony VAIO (Video Audio Integrated Operations). They mainly make high end computers, and they have none for less than $1000. They usually use Intel processors, Seagate hard drives, Infineon RAM, Sony optical drives and Intel or nVidia graphics cards.

Good job on providing this history. You've obviously done some research into this.

Wow, computers got history.

well i got all this information just from wikipedia!

I was hoping to wallow in 8-bit nostalgia, oh well...

Wow.. good job. Did you type all that or cut and paste.. if you typed it all I'd be ashamed of myself

ah.. the days of the abacus... lol

Sorry, I simply couldn't resist I was expecting some Pre-pc info as well, but I guess that's all just a distant memory to most now

You've got some things wrong on the details.
Windows 95 was not a 16-bit operating system. Although it ran on top of the 16-bit DOS, it had its own 32-bit kernel and driver subsystem. (It can be argued that W95 is no more than a shell for DOS, just like W3.x, but I don't agree to that critique.)
And Pentium Pro was not the first 32-bit Intel CPU, actually the 386 was. The thing with the plain Pentium was that it was the first x86 CPU to feature on-dye cache and supercalar operation. (The ability to execute seceral instructions during the same clock cycle) The Pentium Pro addded support for MMX instructions, and possibly a larger cache.
And NT 3.51 was not the only 32-bit OS for the 386 generation. Apart from unices, (Plural of unix) there was OS/2, which was a joint project between microsoft and IBM. Because of legal issues, the OS/2 project was split, and NT 3.51 was microsofts spin-off product. (IBM continued to develop OS/2)
As for the PII, I highly doubt it's a 16-bit CPU internally, where did you hear that?
Also note that Celeron and Xeon are just trademarks, which means that all CPU's with those names are not based on the same technonlogy. (A PII Xeon doesn't have much in common with an Intel Xeon, and an old Celeron is nothing like a new Celeron) Generally, Celerons have less cache, and are built in plastic chips to reduce cost. Xeon branded CPU's have a larger cache and support for multi-CPU execution.

Of course these are just small details, and I haven't read the rest of the essay. I could scan some pages from the Intel developer's manuals I have lying around, if you're interested. (Some history and tables over CPU's)
But for the time it took to write it, it looks great. (But I'd really like to know the source for this claim: "The Pentium 2 was a cost reduced and renamed Pentium Pro with 16-bit processing instead of 32-bit. ")

please read over the rest. I want it to be accurate

Sorry, I don't really know enough about newer CPU's to give a good verdict. (Neither about computer manufacturers, I've always been a home-builder)

well i got all this information from en.wikipedia.org
so i thought it would be accurate

I haven't read all of it but i think you made a bit of a critical mistake..
The history of the computer also includes the pre-IBM(compatible) period; Amiga, C64, Apple ][, ..
You start at IBM-pc's like they were the beginning of computer history.
You're also a bit too technical i think.

However, it's written nicely and gives a good sense of knowledge coming from the writer.
(This is all my humble opinion, don't take it as fact)

doh, going back to start from the ENIAC!

I wouldn't start over..
I'd just change the title a bit..
For example: "history of computer CPU's"