The progress in computer technology has significantly improved the capabilities of the microcomputer image processing systems and brought down their hardware costs. This on-going trend of technological development seems to bring further substantive improvements in microcomputer image processing and decreasing hardware costs. The technical development in microcomputer image processing system including VLSI technology, semiconductor memory, disk and tape storage, and image display subsystems have been reviewed and their future trend have been projected. The impact of this technology to the development of image processing has been assessed in the time period of immediate future (2-3 years) and near future (5 years).