4 Jun
2013
4 Jun
'13
11:56 a.m.
On Tue, 4 Jun 2013, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 06/03/2013 10:25 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
You yourself say that desktops are irrelevant. What about tablets?
I didn't intend to do that.
Time to bring back light pens for circuit designs!
On 3 June 2013 23:59, Dave McGuire <mcguire at
neurotica.com> wrote:
These are toys. We're talking about computers.
Huh?
Define "failed".
OK then, I will.
None of the architectures you've listed has
ever tried
(at least not that I recall) to take over the low-end desktop market.
I beg to differ.
The Sony PS2, Sega Dreamcast and NEC Gamecube generation of consoles
were all (I think) based on derivatives of MIPS. They shipped tens of
millions of units, maybe hundreds of millions between them. There were workstations - PC-bus workstations
with BIOSes and limited
x86 compatibility - based on MIPS and Alpha. There were MIPS add-in
"accelerator" boards for x86 PCs.
There were SPARC laptops and low-end workstations.
That's true but the SPARC laptops were $15K machines that were never
targeted at, or marketed toward, "the masses". The low-end workstations were
just that: low-end workstations. They were never meant to displace cheap
consumer PeeCess in the market.
And of course tons of all sorts from Apple based
on PowerPC.
Right. And they did great for a very long time, and finally put Apple "on
the map" as far as being anything other than a niche desktop platform.
That all seems to me to count as a very serious
attempt indeed to
muscle in on the low-end desktop turf: into the home, into the small
office, etc.
Apple PPC machines, yes. And they made it into a large number of small
offices and homes. But Sun NEVER marketed (say) Ultra5s to home users, and
Tadpole never marketed SPARCbooks to moms & pops.
One of
the four has been
spanking x86-based PCs in unit shipments for a long time.
Do tell. ARM outsells x86 about 10-to-1 but its *desktop* unit
shipments are on the order of hundreds of machines a year, mostly
running Acorn RISC OS. I
respectfully submit that you are wearing "desktop blinders". I'm not at
all trying to argue with you here; I'm just saying that it sounds to me like
your only definition of "successful architecture" is "sold in mass-market
retail in a chassis that looks like a PC". That point of view seems odd to
me, as you asserted that PCs were "dead" just today.
[Tries very hard to be patient]
Stop putting words into my mouth. I'm not saying PCs are dead. I am saying that
PCs are just beginning
to transform into touchscreen-driven devices. The /mouse/ will be dead
and gone as a general-purpose mass-market input device within a few
years, and keyboards will be an optional extra for millions of users,
but PCs aren't going to disappear any time soon.
We are ALMOST in agreement. The mouse thing will be an issue. Touch
devices currently offer nowhere near the precision positioning required for
(say) drawing schematics and layout out PC boards. I say this as someone who
does that kind of work every day, and as someone who doesn't particularly
like mice. I use an Apple touch pad almost exclusively on my desktop
machines...but there's also a mouse connected, for when I need to do work
that requires precision positioning.
When that problem is solved, then we'll be in complete agreement. But
there is no progress currently being made to solve it, nothing on the drawing
boards to address it (and no, the free-space gesture stuff doesn't even get
close)...not even any IDEAS on how to address it.
Ok, I will take you at your word on this.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net/ Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments
I
won't touch the other flame bait.
I swear to you that I am not trying to flame-bait anyone or anything.
I am trying to give the best picture as I understand it.