rsions were also released by various academia. These scientific and engineering workstations were not inexpensive devices for the average user, but they were absolutely essential in engineering organizations, where speed, performance, ergonomics, and the highest quality of comprehensive tools were imperative. This new trend stalled the progress of traditional departmental machines, as epitomized by DEC's VAX. Manufacturers such as Prime Computer and Data General started feeling the pressure and sev- eral of them soon went out of business. Around the same time, IBM introduced the PC. Several books and articles have been written about the success of the PC, the idea itself, the strategy, the pros and cons, and SO on, SO we will not dwell on this subject for long. However, it is important to understand that the arrival and phenomenal suc- cess of the PC sparked the explosion of decentralizing software applications even for ordinary data- center corporate computer users. People discovered it was more efficient to work at their desks rather than to go to a centrally located IT department and use the mainframe. Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. THE EVOLUTION OF NETWORK TECHNOLOGY: DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING AND THE CONVERGENCE OF NETWORKS THE EVOLUTION OF NETWORK TECHNOLOGY 7 The PC was originally an underpowered piece of hardware that engineering workstation suppliers mocked. The atmosphere was bound to change, though. The more sophisticated the software appli- cations became, the more powerful the hardware had to become. Once IBM opened up the architec- ture of the PC to cloning, a whole new industry was created. This not only drove the prices lower and made computing surprisingly affordable for ordinary consumers and startup companies, but it also enabled a humble PC to do unbelievable things. Intel developed and provided generations u