Learning From Prototypes

Abstract

Computer hardware development often involves a succession of hardware prototypes. These prototypes are often discarded once their functionality is tested, performance measured, and their faults detected and analyzed. Occasionally, functional prototypes are used for a short while for demonstration purposes during products' preannouncements or unveiling to attract the attention of investors and technology commentators. And this is where the life cycle of prototyping typically ends. Fortunately, some computer prototypes survive and end up in museums where they are preserved for research as they may still hide the seeds of the success or failure of both the final products and the firms that embarked on constructing them, of technological breakthroughs and paradigm shifts that were yet to come.