Happy birthday to the PC

Research commissioned by PC World to celebrate a quarter of a century of personal computing, reveals that three out of ten people feel they couldn't live without their PC or internet access.

The research, carried out by YouGov show that for many people, PCs far eclipse other technologies such as TVs (19 per cent), mobile phones (7 per cent) and even washing machines (20 per cent)that people felt were vital to their every day lives.

PC World is using the anniversary to stage in-store trials of a digital home installation and advice service, codenamed "The Connected Home". It predicts that the PC will have an even more fundamental impact on people's lives over the next 10 years.

It said products such as internet fridges that scan products and place automatic orders with home delivery services, remotely accessible security systems, plug and play car diagnostic systems, digital health systems and much more are available today and will become mainstream over time.

If this seems far fetched, the retailer outlined how the PC has evolved since the original IBM PC was launched, costing around £2,500 in today's terms, in 1981.

The original desktop PC it points out was a long way from the user friendly devices we use today. Even for those who knew how to use them, it took time to ask the PC a question and then it would take its time to give an answer.

The original IBM PC boasted a maximum 256kb memory; state of the art PCs today uses 8,000 times more memory for a fraction of the price of the original PC.

The original IBM PC had a 4.77MHz processor. Today's state of the art PCs can operate at 650 times the processing speed.

The standard storage device on an original IBM PC was a single 5.25-inch floppy drive with 160K of capacity, enough to hold a handful of today's Mi crosoft Word documents.

Today, top of the range PCs come with as much as 600 gigabytes of storage, enough to hold 600 copies of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A 600GB hard drive can hold over 3.8 million times more information that the floppy drive of 25 years ago.

Today's modern (dual layer) DVD disks can hold over 100 thousand times more information than the floppy disk in the original IBM PC

The original IBM PC pre-dated the development of Microsoft Windows. Today's PCs offer video, 3D gaming, wireless functions, integrated TV technology, internet access, full colour flatscreens and many more features which were the stuff of science fiction in 1981 - and all for less than the cost of the original IBM PC.