Over the weekend I had a chance to talk with an eight year old boy who’s inventing a new computer gadget. After using his mother’s PC, he’s found a shortcoming in USB technology that can be fixed with his new product. I wasn’t sure what to tell him because it’s very difficult to get the computer industry to adopt anything new.
We don’t normally think about where stuff comes from in my industry until we’re confronted by an ambitious eight year old. Molex connectors, CD ROMs and printer specifications were all developed by independent groups before we had industry standards. In the hay day of PCs various technologies were adopted, but nowadays anything new must pass stringent tests.
The Molex company has been around since the 1930’s and created many firsts in the PC world. Years after their introduction we still refer to the four pin connectors used in some systems as Molex connectors. Molex connectors continue to be used because they have a stronghold in the industry.
If I had a favorite piece of nonstandard technology it would be the printer (or parallel) port. My first real computer had a parallel port that was “IBM compatible” which meant that printers designed for IBMs may work. Because no real standards for printers were developed until the 1990’s it wasn’t uncommon to have an unknown printer glitch minutes before a due date.
Once computers started to become a little more commonplace large manufacturers like Sony, Hewlett-Packard and IBM teamed up to create standards. Gone were the days of rogue manufacturers creating proprietary technologies and in came at least a modicum of standards. During the late 90’s the industry developed standards which help foster the incredible growth of that era.
For the first time in computer history we could interchange components from one manufacturer to another and have a working system. Provided the system was manufactured to the same standards most components would easily swap. Businesses like mine flourished because they no longer needed to keep the extensive inventory they once did.
Today, changes to technology pass through standards groups like the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) prior to being adopted. Organizations like INCITS test the validity of an emerging technology and aid in creating a standard. One benefit of passing a new idea through INCITS is the incredible breadth of industries represented by its panel.
After making and validating his novel idea, my eight year old inventor friend would submit his idea to INCITS for inclusion into their research. His idea would be assigned to a panel responsible for his product genre where it would be dissected in regards to validity and widespread industry adoptability. His idea could be anything from cloud computing to a new means of interconnecting computer components.
Nothing is stopping the boy from making and developing the technology himself but the chances of it being accepted across the mainstream computer industry is minimal. Products like his usually end up being self marketed and sold to hobbyists and tinkerers through a community driven open source marketplace.
After listening to the sporadic ramblings of an eight year old boy I’m not sure the idea is quite good enough for inclusion in the conventional PC market. But, as an add-on for one of the many open source projects like Arduino I’m quite sure he’d have a hit. One of the many shortcomings of standardized components and systems is the best ideas are sometimes squashed. Invention is the mother of all necessity.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him at (978) 919-8059 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)