Before the 1970s the word hardware usually meant one of two things: the beautiful chrome handles on your new dresser and the kitchen cabinets, or the hammer, saw, and nails that you purchased at the local hardware store. Then came the computer boom! Hardware took on a new meaning! If all the programming that made a computer work were called software, then the hard box and its components took on the name of hardware.
Hardware became a massive, competitive industry that ex…