30 Oct
2006
30 Oct
'06
2:52 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 29 Oct 2006 at 5:46, Jules Richardson wrote:
:-)
I did wonder about setting some rules about what qualifies - but that's so
hard to do. Personally I wouldn't consider a phone (somehow not 'general
purpose' enough) or anything which called itself a calculator rather than a
computer - but it's impossible to tie that down to specific rules without
offending someone as there are bound to be exceptions :-)
Hence freeform replies are perhaps better - it's just interesting to hear what
people out there have.
The question of who has the smallest computer
might be an interesting one.
Whilst in later years the technology allowed machines to pack a lot more
electronics into the case, the physical size didn't really decrease much - and
in a lot of cases got bigger (quite often due to built-ins like disk drives
that didn't *need* to be part of the main system).
I think you need look no further than your moble phone or perhaps
your wristwatch.... :)
The mobile probably has far more computing power--and quite possibly
(depending on mode) more storage and a higher-resultion display. If the manufacturers ever get the display thing licked
(e.g. by
direct project onto the user's retina) and the keyboard thing done
(no, I don't consider texting on a mobile the optimum keyboard entry
method), I suspect that we'll all be using mobiles for routine
computing tasks shortly.
Hmm, interesting to guess where things might go. If the retina thing doesn't
happen I expect roll-up flexible keyboards and displays might become the norm.
That or two 'sticks' on an X-Y axis could be used to read finger positions and
to either project a display image or an image of a keyboard matrix.
Personally I'm not so sure I'd get on with keyboards like that. Although
there's been good and bad keyboards around over the years, anything's got to
be better than touching either thin air or a solid object (remember trying to
type on a ZX81 :-)
That will make the current desktop PCs seem almost as
unwieldly as
the computing behemoths of the 50's.
Possibly. But I wonder if the human brain's designed to cope (or can be
trained to cope) with such things. Human biology is often something that
gadget designers forget at the expense of making things ever smaller, faster,
clearer. As an example, I can't stand watching TV on an LCD display because to
my eyes it looks *too* crisp and sharp, resulting in something which looks
unnatural to me even though it's technically so much 'better' than a CRT.
Of course I don't think that most consumers thing of such things - they lap up
the marketing hype and then live with the consequences without even thinking
about them (particularly where the longevity of a product is concerned)
cheers
Jules