Plus ça change – even if we can’t predict it

the odd thing about change is that you rarely notice it happening. Which brings me, naturally, to The West Wing. I’m a big fan of the show and rewatch it every couple of years, but I spend the first few episodes distracted by the technology on people’s desks. “What’s that over there?” my brain whispers. “A CRT monitor? How quaint!”

The West Wing was first broadcast in 1999, which in terms of politics doesn’t seem that long ago. Cold, fractious relationship with Russia and China? Still there. Nuclear tensions with North Korea? Oh yes. Suave intellectual US president respected by the world? What’s that you say,

PC Pro lawyers? Okay, let’s skip lightly away from that one and head back to the summer of 1994.

For that was when the first issue of PC Pro emerged onto UK shelves, and scattered through this magazine you’ll find five pages we’ve picked from that issue. Pages that show just how much things have changed. I won’t go through them all – and I should apologise that these are merely scans – but I recommend you read through them if your eyesight allows. They’re an insight into a world long past, and helped me appreciate just how far we’ve come.

For example, head to p55 and you can read a review of our first Dell Latitude, complete with roller ball to control the cursor, three-hour battery life and bezels the size of the Atlantic. It sits in stark contrast to the sleek, modern Dell Latitude that we review on p56. Or read Jon Honeyball’s take on a Pentium 60 desktop PC on p59 and compare it to the ultra-powerful AMD Ryzen workstation we review on p58. The only thing they have in common is their price.

I didn’t want this issue to be all about the past, though. Whilst I love delving into days gone by, we have no control over it. What matters is the future, and it’s us – the buyers of tech – who define it. So take a look at our predictions for the next 25 years in the Futures section, starting on p124, and ask yourself if it’s a future you wish for.

How many of those will come true? I’d say we have a one in four hit rate, so here’s hoping that the experts we’ve assembled for that article have better foresight. What we can know more definitively are the people who will shape the next decade, and perhaps the 15 years that follow it too. Will Netflix still be here? Amazon? Google? You can bet our “25 people who will change the world” on p30 will hope so.

Judging by our roster, though, there’s only a two in 25 chance of them still being relevant when PC Pro turns 50: if we had written such an article when we launched in 1994, Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee would have made the cut but no one else. If we base it on companies represented by the people on that list, only Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have survived the intervening 25 years stronger.

Looking back over those years, there has rarely been a defining moment when everything changed. Such change happens over time, minor innovation by minor innovation, coupled with the IT industry’s insatiable appetite to innovate and improve. Companies grow, products launch, new ideas disrupt everything. The only thing I can be sure of is that these trends will continue – and I hope that PC Pro will continue to have a role to play.

We can’t do that without readers, so whether you’re picking up this magazine for the first time or you’ve been a subscriber since the year dot, I’m going to be corny and say thank you. It’s been quite a ride.

Tim Danton

Editor-in-chief