stowe@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (holly) (06/28/88)
A friend of mine just read this to me. I thought I should share it. I won't make any comments one way or another. From _Byte_, July, 1988... Part of the problem is that "computers are not powerful enough to be used at home for anything productive," says Neil Harris, Director of Product Marketing at Atari. "I think the ST and the Amiga are in the right direction, but we're still not there yet." Harris also blames the industry press for not covering the Atari machines enough.
neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) (06/29/88)
In article <1928@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>, stowe@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (holly) writes: > > A friend of mine just read this to me. I thought I should share it. > I won't make any comments one way or another. > > > From _Byte_, July, 1988... > > Part of the problem is that "computers are not powerful enough to be used > at home for anything productive," says Neil Harris, Director of Product > Marketing at Atari. "I think the ST and the Amiga are in the right > direction, but we're still not there yet." Harris also blames the industry > press for not covering the Atari machines enough. There was a long panel discussion held at West Coast Computer Faire in March. My talk centered on the reasons why computers in the home had not caught on to the big extent expected in the earlier part of the decade -- people rarely use the computer for purposes like personal finance, for example. I postulated that advances in technology would change this. For example, imagine a scanner which could read text and put it into the appropriate place in a database. So you could feed in your checkbook and it would create your budget information automatically. With faster processors, better AI software, and cheaper scanners (all reasonable to expect within the next few years) this could be a real product. Without this, home finance is a painful operation, involving many hours of drudgery keying in the information. Office computing has taken off because the office has a labor force available to handle this kind of job. The home needs more powerful technology. <sigh> Pick on the press and see where it gets you... --->Neil -- Neil Harris, Director of Product Marketing UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS, BIX: neilharris, CIS: 70007,1135, Office: 408-745-2160
wheels@mks.UUCP (Gerry Wheeler) (06/30/88)
In article <1083@atari.UUCP>, neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) writes: > There was a long panel discussion held at West Coast Computer Faire in > March. My talk centered on the reasons why computers in the home had > not caught on to the big extent expected in the earlier part of the > decade -- people rarely use the computer for purposes like personal > finance, for example. [ various things about scanners, etc. ] IMHO there seem to be several things precluding the everyday use of home computers. One, as you said Neil, is the difficulty of transferring data from real life into bits. And, as an associated factor, nobody is going to do on the computer what they didn't do on paper. People can't expect a computer to magically organise their lives. Another factor, I think, is the size of the computer. Few people are willing to give up two square feet of their dining room table just so they can read the newspaper electronically instead of the usual way. Ditto for the kitchen counter. I think ultimately we'll need to have thin screens that mount on the wall. Sci fi movies have been doing that for ages. Of course, it's hard to hang the computer on the wall too, so the wall unit will likely be just a terminal connected to the computer in the basement. If that same computer is going to support all the other terminals in the house, it'll have to be multitasking, right? So, who wants to be the first to put all this into practice? And what happened to Alan Kay's Dynabook? -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043