Data and Messages

Back in the Eighties, I worked for a company that designed printed circuit boards. These were a big improvement on the old type, with wires making all the connections.

But the idea was the same - there were many connections, with the printed circuits making all the connections. The result was a multi-layer circuit board, with many connections between the layers.

Our company had a resident genius, who designed a program that would specify how to build these circuit boards. But using his program was not easy.

Our company was formed to make this easier. Using our own computer, a huge thing, in its own air-conditioned room.

It failed because a better way of doing this was found. That I will describe now.

All these many, many connections were replaced by a data bus for the data - and a message bus, carrying messages between all the components. There was a master clock that kept everything synchronized.

The hardware was now much simpler (only a one layer circuit board) and software improvements (in the Operating Systems, such as Microsoft's Windows) made this possible.

The components were also improving rapidly, with many of the external connections now made internally.

We were off to the races! And the boom of the Nineties.