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30 Years of Technology and PCR

To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we've taken a trip down memory lane and reviewed the last 30 years of technology and PCR.This September 2022, PCR Connected celebrates its 30th Anniversary. To mark this milestone, we've taken a trip down memory lane to see how far PCR Connected and technology in general has come. It’s hard to remember a time when the Cloud was not commonplace, or the internet was not at our fingertips, but this really wasn’t that long ago! Technology has progressed massively over a relatively short period of time and it is equally exciting to imagine what the next few years will bring.

We hope you enjoy reminiscing about the ‘old days’ as much as we have!  

30 Years of Technology and PCR

To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we've taken a trip down memory lane and reviewed the last 30 years of technology and PCR.This September 2022, PCR Connected celebrates its 30th Anniversary. To mark this milestone, we've taken a trip down memory lane to see how far PCR Connected and technology in general has come. It’s hard to remember a time when the Cloud was not commonplace, or the internet was not at our fingertips, but this really wasn’t that long ago! Technology has progressed massively over a relatively short period of time and it is equally exciting to imagine what the next few years will bring.

History of PCR Connected

PCR was incorporated in September 1992. At that time, it was operating as PCR Computers and was formed by our director, Nick Barber, to work with Pegasus, and their MS-DOS based accounting software called Business Manager. Soon after our formation, Pegasus launched Opera, and PCR became one of the UK’s first Pegasus accredited partners. It has since continued to work successfully with Opera. We also sold hardware devices to share laser printers over the electrical power cables. This was a common requirement before the advent of Local Area Networks (LAN). Prior to this, people would save documents on a diskette and walk to the PC that was connected to the printer! In 1997, almost 5 years since incorporation, PCR Computers was an established business, with offices at Airport House. Richard Shinn joined the company to develop the dedicated IT support and networking side of the business. This led to significant expansion and in 2005, PCR acquired its own offices at The Pavillions, South Croydon. We still operate from this location today! In 2019, we rebranded from PCR Computers to PCR Connected. We felt the ‘Computers’ element of our name did not encompass our broad range of IT support, software and consultancy services. Instead, PCR Connected better reflected how we engage with our clients to deliver connected and reliable systems. The rebrand included a makeover of our offices!  

We are extremely grateful to all our lovely customers over the years. They have joined us on this journey and we couldn’t have done it without them! We currently support over 120 businesses with their IT systems and software across London, Surrey and the South East. We’re extremely proud of our loyal customer and employee base. Over half of our employees have been with us for more than 10 years!  

The last 30 years of Technology and IT Support

When we look back and recall the significant moments of how we used to do things at PCR, unsurprisingly a lot has changed in the last 30 years. The way we used to work, the services we provided; the vendors we partnered with, and the software and hardware we installed and supported.  While some things remain similar, the mouse being one, the differences are vast and a trained technician of 90’s, would be bewildered by today’s technology. The pace and speed at which we can command and want information is phenomenal in comparison. We have selected a few memories from those closer to when PCR began. Hopefully some of you may remember or be able to relate to them……  

• Hardware was more complex to configure in the 90’s. It demanded a more technical knowledge to get something working. Having to set DIP switch and Jumpers on hardware was commonplace.

• The USB standard arrived in the mid 90’s and things started to get a little easier after that to add equipment, but it was still a few years before it become the reliable and easy technology that we use today.
• When we talked about storage back then, we would be discussing Kbytes and Mbytes and Not Gbytes or Terabytes. When choosing a PC specification, you may have pondered over getting the 20 or 30 Mbyte Hard Drive, and was it worth the extra spend!
• Protecting a computer against computer viruses would mean receiving a floppy disk in the post from the software vendor and running it on each computer to update and check if the PC was “clean”. Once a month would be considered more than “sufficient”.
• Failure rates on hardware equipment was more common. Dead on arrival or failure rate on components was notably higher. We recall in the early 90’s a 25% failure rate was considered “not bad”. 

• Windows 95 launched in, well, 1995!  It was a ground-breaking moment to be able to boot into the GUI (Graphical Operating System).  Windows 95 was also 32 Bit and shrugged off the old look of Windows 3.11 and text based 16 Bit DOS.  Windows 95 also brought in the age of the START button. We of course see that theme work its way through to Windows 98, and several other versions, to Windows 10 and now the latest Windows 11 operating system.
• Windows 95 also included Internet Explorer and Exchange for email, desirable extras for a Windows fan.

• An internet search was made by using Lycos, Archie, Yahoo or maybe AltaVista, but not Google. The latter has dominated all searches from the year 2000, just two years after it was founded.

• Novell Netware was dominant in the 80’s through to mid-90s. It was a very reliable networking operating system. However, owing to competition and some bad strategical decisions, the giant, with a turnover of $2Billion in its heyday, is now no more.

• In comes Microsoft Windows NT Server and Back Office Server around 1997.  The earlier versions of Windows NT were a long way behind the reliability of Netware, but the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and the bundled back-office applications were instrumental to Microsoft dominating the Server Networking space.

• Those popular Back Office products such as Fax Server (yes), Exchange Server 5.5 and SQL Server, made this an excellent choice for the small business looking to harness email in their organisation and computerise the FAX and a database server.

• Office assistant clippy - it could be said this was the start of an interactive help system. The character would pop up when it looked like you might need help editing an Office document in the 90s. Unfortunately clippy quickly gained a reputation of being a nuisance and we recall often being asked how to switch clippy off !
• If you wanted to be connected to the World Wide Web or send an email, you may well have been subscribed to CompuServe or AOL and using their proprietary browsers. Or maybe you were using Netscape Navigator until Internet Explorer helped its demise.

• Phones did not have a colour screen until 1998. Siemens lead the way with the first colour screen with the S10.
• Ericsson and Nokia were big players, and Blackberry was the de facto choice for someone that wanted email on the go.
•  And 10 years later, the Apple iPhone revolutionised the phone market with their soft key touchscreen approach…the rest is History!

Opera and accounting software through the years

The milestones for the accounting software market have been equally significant…

• In its infancy, Pegasus Opera v1 was supplied on 4 diskettes, sent via the post. It only supported Dot Matrix Printers.

• Y2K Compliance – as we approached the millennium, the technology industry and the world became obsessed with the so-called millennium bug, where the year had been represented with two numbers, and what effect this would have when it would translate to 00. Pegasus Opera included guaranteed Millennium bug (Y2K) compliance early on!
• Pegasus Opera II was launched in 2003 – whilst there was a Windows version of Opera, a native 32 bit version of Opera was launched in 2003.

• In 2008, we became a partner for Draycir, and their Spindle Product – allowing the sending of batches of documents via email and archiving copies. This saved some customers thousands of pounds in postage costs and efficiency savings!

• Major Changes to interactions to Government – RTI, AE and MTD. Certain routine tasks that most businesses had to perform have changed considerably. We no longer complete a VAT100 form, we submit via Making Tax Digital (MTD). Our payroll data is supplied to the HMRC on a regular basis with Real Time Information (RTI).

• Pegasus Opera 3 (download only) – today Opera 3 is the flagship product from Pegasus and is only supplied via a download! It is a comprehensive system that now incorporates Excel Based Reporting, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Document Management, Fixed Assets as well as Payroll, Financials and Order Processing!

• Over the last few years, PCR Connected has become a Dynamics 365 Business Central Partner. This partnership allows us to implement and support cloud based financial management software and offers customers a financial management system that integrates perfectly with Microsoft 365.

Share your experiences!

We’d love to hear your memories of technology through the years – please feel free to email us or share on social media.