IF YOU LOOK back at this issue of IEEE Design Test 10 years from now, you may find it one of the most significant ever for what it foretells. You may also be reading it in a somewhat strange fashion--i.e., not in the form you're holding in your hands at this moment. The reason is that it shows how to bring a trend that has been happening for nearly 50 years to its natural conclusion. In the 1960s, we were kept away from our computers, which were located in glass houses, and served by data "priests." By the 1970s, those of us trained to serve as the new generation of priests got to actually touch the new breed of minicomputers. In the late 1970s and early 1980s computers came home with us, first with simple machines like the first Apples and the Commodore 64, and then with PCs. These didn't come in racks, nor did they involve installing immense power supplies--they simply sat on a desk. We were getting close.
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