The newspaper ads scream out prices,
MHz, ATA-100, DDR, XGA. Do you know what these buzzwords really
mean? Does anyone? The PC may be the single most important tool
for researchers and executives, but because it is purchased in a
camera store or discount food warehouse it is often treated as a
commodity item.
There are no bad Personal Computer
systems. The least powerful system available today is better
than the most expensive system of a few years ago. High quality
components are produced in such large numbers at such low prices,
that there is no profit building substandard systems.
Last year the price of memory
continued to drop, disk drives increased capacity, DVD writers got
faster, and the price of flat panel displays dropped. However,
Intel CPU speed has been stuck around 3 GHz for over two years
now. An entire new generation of "Prescott" chips failed to
provide improved performance. Attention is now focused on "dual
core" (two CPU's in one chip) processors expected during the
Summer of 2005. AMD has been offering powerful 64-bit processors,
but Microsoft will not deliver a 64-bit version of Windows until
Spring.
The vendors say little about these
technical problems, because they might cause consumers to put off
buying a new machine. PCLT has nothing to sell and no agenda to
push. This article will explain the jargon, and it may answer a
few more questions then you knew how to ask. No technical
background is assumed. Even very complex issues will be explained
in terms that everyone can understand.
IBM invented the modern PC design,
but they recently sold that business to a Chinese company. This
should not be a big surprise. Often the only American thing in a
computer is the name on the cardboard box it came in.
If you buy a car from Ford, you
expect the frame, engine, transmission, generator, and other parts
to come from Ford or at least be built to Ford specifications. You
do not expect to be able to put a Ford transmission in a GM car.
In a PC, however, the CPU, memory,
disk, CD, power supply, and case are all manufactured to industry
standards. You can take a hard disk or memory out of a Dell
computer and put it into a system made by HP. The brand names you
know are the names of companies that assemble, distribute, and
support the computers, not the companies that make the parts.
This is an international business.
The mainboard almost certainly comes from a Taiwan company (Asus,
Abit, Shuttle, MSI, ...). Disks tend to come from Singapore or
Indonesia (Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor). Memory and LCD
displays often come from Korea. The external case and the power
supply probably come from China.
You can buy the components from CDW
or NewEgg and assemble a computer yourself, but you won't save any
money. The big computer makers buy parts in lots of a thousand,
packaged in bulk to save packing and shipping. Nine screws attach
the motherboard to the mounts on the case. Four screws attach the
disk to the disk bay. Then the cables all plug into sockets. An
unskilled worker can be quickly trained to assemble a computer
every few minutes.
The advanced technology is in the
manufacture of the chips, not the final assembly of the finished
product. A CPU chip is constructed in a plant that costs billions.
The building is on shock absorbers because the vibration generated
by passing trucks would disturb the process. People wear
spacesuits not to protect them from the environment, but to
protect the chips from flakes of loose skin or the particles we
exhale in every breath.
Then the chip is packaged in
plastic and shipped out. There is a socket on the mainboard and a
mark to line up the corners of the chip to the corresponding
corners of the socket. Lift a lever on the side of the socket and
the chip simply drops into place. Lower the lever and the chip is
locked in place. It is harder to tie a shoelace than to install a
CPU chip on a mainboard. Plugging in the other components is only
marginally more difficult.
