For anyone over the age of 40 and working in the IT industry, the idea that computers and components could be treated as antiques is a strange one. Electronics during the 80s and 90s progressed on an almost weekly basis - new components, new machines and new software. The speed of development was relentless and in its wake was left a veritable graveyard of worn-out, laughable (and increasingly incompatible) machines.

Overhearing a conversation between motor sport journalists at Silverstone this week, I was intrigued by one man (who was definitely over 40) speaking about his collection of old PCs and components. He had a collection of old tech, from early Sinclair ZX81s and Spectrums to Amstrad PCWs and 286 PCs. He had memory chips, old floppy drives and discs, you name it.

“Why?” I asked.

“For my son,” came the reply. “They’ll be worth a fortune one day. They’ll be antiques.”

Thanks dad.

He has a point though. Not many people will have held onto their old technology and history has proven that niche collectors markets tend to be lucrative. It does get you thinking about all the stuff you have thrown away over the years, how long the IT industry has been going and what a central part Intel has played in its development. It’s odd to think that the microprocessor started its journey 40 years ago. In 1970, Intel introduced its first commercial chip (the 4004) which was originally designed to be used in the Busicom calculator. An advert in Electronic News announced its arrival but the Busicom was doomed, due largely to a Japanese recession in 1974. However in that same year, the 8080 chip emerged with a clock speed of 2Mhz (!) and laid the foundations for the 8088 (5Mhz) which powered the new IBM PC.

A year later the 286 chip emerged and the stage was set for the next 20 years as Intel produced a stream of x86 processors powering Microsoft-driven PCs. The 286 was a 6Mhz chip with 134,000 transistors, a revelation in chip design but still dubbed "brain dead" by Bill Gates for its inability to manage multiple MS-Dos apps.  For me, 1989 was the year it started to fly. The 486 running at 25Mhz (nosebleed time) arrived with the integrated floating point unit and enough kick to make it a decent games machine. Memories of old favourites such as Prince of Persia, Indy 500, Outrun and Populous still bring a smile to the face and at the time they were cutting edge. It’s incredible to think you would now need over 120 486 chips to get anywhere near the power and speed of Intel’s forthcoming Westmere family.

Life in the late 1980s was slow but still exciting and the games and machines of that era are now entering the nostalgia phase for the current crop of 40 and 50-somethings. It’s always difficult to imagine what will become of an industry when you are stuck in the middle of it. Perhaps it’s time to take stock and look around you. The netbooks, desktops and iPads of today will be tomorrow’s inheritance to a generation that will look back and laugh at the fact that we ran our machines at clock speeds of 3Ghz.

For more information on chip history...

Intel Museum - http://www.intel.com/museum/corporatetimeline/

Processor Timeline - http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/IntelProcessorHistory.pdf