cory@3letter.MV.COM (Cory Kempf) (05/03/90)
pete@romed.UUCP (Pete Rourke) writes: >Has anyone assembled ideas on what UNIX's future might be in 2000? I have not assembled any collections of ideas, but I have thought about it a lot... >With all of the hardware makers talking about 2000 MIPS in a desktop/side >system with multiple processors, and very unique operator interfaces, >(like virtual reality & "Knowledge Navigator"), I'd imagine there will >be a lot of unique things happening to the operating enviornments. Personally, I would prefer a system with 2 BIPS over 2000 MIPS, :-) Seriously, raw processing power will probably not have as much of an impact as improvements in memory and interface technologies will. For example, consider a 100 MIPS system with say, 1TB of non-volatile zero wait state RAM... and a 3D 24 bit/pixel Colour Display system combined with dataglove technology. >Has there been a discussion of what actually will be the human interface >in 2000? A while back, when the nExt was first comming out, there was a discussion about what the next generation user interfaces would look like. Most of the ideas centred around a 3D virtual office metaphor. Using current technology, we have the ability to produce a 3D display. Nintendo is already marketing a dataglove. I have seen two different technologies that their proponents claim will offer memory in the TaraByte range at reasonable cost in a few years. (I have yet to see them on the market though). If you put 4 88k processors on a single system, you should be able to get about 100 MIPS. Several other companies have processors that give similar performance. I hope to see such a system offered in the next five years or so... with a pricetag of about $15,000. >How much will simulation play in the natural interface to the human from >the computer? That question is directly related to how much we can expect the humans to be able/willing to learn. If we expect little, the systems will most likely need to have a very solid metaphor, simulating something in the "real world (tm)" that people understand already. What will these be with a generation that has grown up with computers? +C -- Cory Kempf I do speak for the company (sometimes). Three Letter Company 603 883 2474 email: cory@3letter.mv.com, decvax!bu-tyng!3letter!cory, harvard!zinn!3letter!cory