The Evolution of Network Support Through The Decades

 

The internet has been around the 1980s, but the personal computer industry began a little earlier, in the late 1970s. So, once the personal computer became a thing, so did network support, and IT services. This article discusses the evolution of these services throughout the last few decades. How did it all begin, and how is it going now? Is there any big difference between the 1970s and the 2020s technology in Washington DC?

The Beginning of Network Support: 1980s and 1990s

Even if the computer was invented in the 70s, it became a present thing in the houses of people only in the 80s. It was called “home computer”, and it had limited functions. In 1984, Apple released their first computer, the Macintosh; which will go on to be the first successful mass-market computer with a graphical user interface and a mouse. And, as soon as the computer entered the houses of people, network support was needed! Before the Macintosh, there was the Apple Lisa, but it was not as successful; because of the price and its weight. You can find more about the first widely-sold computer in this article published by TechTarget!

The World Wide Web was made available for public use in 1991. The Web or WWW, is an IS (information system), that allows users to share content. The standard markup language is HTLM, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language. This language supports photos, text, videos, audios, and scripts. Now, many household had a personal computer, and the Web at their fingertips. Because it was just the beginning, the network support problems were not very complicated. The common problems were related to insufficient bandwidth, incompatibility between network types, and beginner malware.

IT Services in the 2000s

The 2000s brought PCs that were smaller and faster. Wi-Fi started becoming more and more popular, and popular companies were born, or were evolving (like Apple, Lenovo, IBM, etc.). A statistic says that in the year 2000, more than 50% of the households in the United States had a personal computer. There were many technological things that changed around this time. Things were constantly being changed, in order to obtain computers that were portable, slimmer, and overall better.

The Y2K problem, or simply “The year 2000 problem”, was a computer error related to formatting. Many of the systems were using only two digits for the year (as an example, 90 for 1990), that’s why the systems were interpreting 00, as we past in 2000, as 1900. The problem proved to be easier to fix, and didn’t cause as much chaos as it was expected. But, there were a few disruptions reported. The most known case is the one in a French engineering school; instead of 3 January 2000, the electric sign was showing 3 January 1900. With the help of network support, the problem never got the chance to become a big thing. Therefore it remained just a scare in the year of 2000.

The Problems of The 2010s

In the 2010s almost everyone was on the internet, and almost everyone had a personal computer. Washington DC IT services became more and more needed, and people started handling a lot of issues by themselves. The first gaming hardware that was able to track body movements, and translate those into gaming directions was first launched by Microsoft in 2010. It was the era of big data, and the year of the game Angry Birds (because it became the best-selling mobile game). And, as more of timestamp, iPhone 4 was released in 2010.

The network support problems of the 2010s were internet outages, cyberattacks, and some issues with privacy and security. There was a number of cyberattacks, some of the most popular ones are: The Japan-South Korea cyberwarfare, and the White House cyberattack in 2012. By this time, most social media platforms were already full of people (Facebook, Twitter, Hi-5, Myspace, etc.); and there were many problems when it comes to the security of the data of the people that had accounts on this social platforms. This article published by SolarWinds talks about some of the internet incidents of 2010.

Nowadays: The 2020s

The pandemic was one of those reasons why remote work, and technology, was forced to evolve and improve. The present, and the future of the internet, and computers, seems to be tied by AI, blockchain, and 5G. Everyone wants to launch the slimmest phone, and most interesting curved desktop, and the realest game. It seems that this is the area of doing everything over the top. Normal is no longer enough, and spectacular is the norm. Everyone is looking to streamline everything. Automation is present in every business, and almost known reads a book fully, just summaries.

It’s been said a thousand times, but it is “The era of speed”. Every task must be fast and easy, and if it’s not, it needs some automation. The teams that offer Washington DC IT services have harder jobs than ever before. Because the great changes requires complicated fixes. It’s easy to fix a computer than can only connect to the internet and load the game with the snake. But imagine fixing a computer that can create realistic games! The good news is that, until now, humans seem to be able to keep up with the computers. Fortunately, it’s not like in the movies yet, where robots become smarter than humans!

Conclusion

As long as computers will exist, network support will be needed. Across the many decades, since the personal computer and the internet became open to the masses, the help needed changed drastically. Someone that fixed computer in the 80s might have a problem fixing a bug in 2020s. It seems like the goal is to obtain the speed of light on our phones, maybe even while scrolling! With excitement, and maybe a little bit of fear, we are all waiting to see what the future holds. As many people say, maybe in another few decades, we will be able to teleport; maybe even from Washington DC, to the moon!