FISCHER@RUTGERS (03/17/83)
From: Ron <FISCHER@RUTGERS> What follows is only half serious. Please disconnect one side of your brain before continuing to read. Thank you. ---------------- In the ocean of time there have been many "waves of the future." Not the least of recent temporal distubances has been the microcomputer craze. Like most wet waves, societal-sized changes often alter character several times as they "come in," before crashing and flattening. The simplest thing to gauge the contortions of the "microcomputer revolution" is with the varying shape and dweomer of its progeny. Many forces have shaped the design of products during the microcomputer craze. However, in the midst of this turmoil there has been a clear direction, from the absolute practicality of the past, to the coming frivolity of the near future. In the beginning there were chips. And they were expensive. The buyers had said, "Let there be a market!" and it was big. The chips multiplied as they were lead from their former domain, that of the hardware hacker, to a new and greater land of bilk and money, the regions of the retail producer. And the chip sellers became prosperous. But now our tale of wonder takes an odd turn. Designers of systems were previously limited by the price of the chips going into them. But then VLSI technology became more accessable and refined. Where once there were many simple chips, there now lay socketed a single ungodly complicated chip. Said large chip is nimble enough to tapdance in 7/4 6/8 time. Meanwhile, memory's density leapt spritely higher and higher, but its cost became more and more subdued. When the dust settled about the dancing and shrinking chips it was discovered that their price no longer dominated products built with them. Another cost had taken over: software. Software began it's life on microcomputers with a solemn "Moo." In the beginning, software was stupid. Operating systems were the dumbest pieces of software, being prejudiced to the extreme and liable to crash in a fit of rage at the user's slightest mistake. The childhood of personal computer software was a troubled one. Retail producers realized that it would take serious amounts of effort to get software right, and as anyone knows: commercial effort means money, great bags of money. At the moment we're in the era of "user friendly" software, the cost of which is beginning to dominate personal machines like workstations. So were does the wave crash and flatten? The trend looks to be toward paying attention to aesthetics. Soon people won't touch a computer if it offends them. As well they shouldn't. Unlike a puppy, computers are not cute when young, and (given a choice) people won't stand for the software equivalent of an "accident." No one wants to train a computer how to behave, and worse, no one wants a computer to teach *them* how to behave! Executives, who have always had an aversion to the keyboard (but for the wrong reason), will be the first to exhibit these tendancies, because they will be the first serious market of end users with a choice of computer to buy. How many managers earning $50k per year will purchase a giant, or worse stupid, box to put on their desk? Making the box smart won't be terribly difficult; software's moving that way already. Making the box dominate space less than its user will be. About the hardest thing to disguise in any computer is the display. The design of almost every display box in history tells the tale of trying to hide a CRT. Note that the Grid/Compass computer uses a (currently slightly impractical) flourescent display. But when you meet someone who owns a Grid/Compass you still notice their face before noticing their computer. The trend seems to be toward improvement based on aesthetics along the same two tracks: software and hardware. Software has been the first to move in that direction, it is easier to write and distribute software than to tool up and produce new hardware. The newest software uses metaphors that are pleasing, data as an object for instance. When given a choice, and not limited to "the only package that really does the job," people will use the "nicer" one. Their judgement of niceness will be based on all the unquantifiables that marketing people try to nail down. Aesthetics. Personal taste. This brings one to imagine all sorts of personal computers and workstations, designed for every taste and need in a consumer oriented marketplace. The buyer of a "boom box" portable loud stereo system, what would this person buy in a personal computer? The buyer of a $5000+ home stereo system, what sort of computer would this person have? The buyer of a Pathmark Supermarket generic (yellow) AM radio, what would they buy? What sort of computer would a valley girl buy? On we roll toward the Calvin Klein computer... ---------------- Please reconnect brain before continueing, or operating heavy machinery (or software?). Just thought another way of looking at things would be amusing. Does anyone have any thoughts on what really drives the personal computer market, and its coming offshoot the workstation market? Who do manufacturers really listen to when designing new personal computers (not at the VIC-20 level, at the Apple Lisa level)? How quickly will upper level managers will get personal information systems (WorkStations)? What are the side effects of large masses of society having powerful personal information systems? (this last one seems especially interesting) (ron) -------