In-home computing and information services : A twenty-year analysis of the technology and its impacts

This article examines the evolution of in-home computing over a period of 20 years, 1980-2000. Although its development in the past five years has not occured in the precise manner predicted, there are many signals which promise its future growth in different directions. In order to capture these various possibilities realistically, what is needed is an assessment of in-home computing not as an expression of a single product within a single technology but as an outcome of the fusion of computing, communication and information technologies developing over a period of time. The impact of such a multifaceted development extends to the economic, social, politial and psychological spheres.