25 Sep
2000
25 Sep
'00
6:54 p.m.
From: Bill Pechter <pechter(a)pechter.dyndns.org>
You're in good company:
Keep in mind I had little touch with leadign edge tech back
in 70/71 when I made my school choices. I was fixing tube
based equippment mostly and an IC was rather crude stuff.
"There is no reason for any individual to have a
computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
In one sense he was right but the desktop and killer apps
like spreadsheets and user friendly databases were phase
one and new. It took more than that to get the kitchen
computer real. The internet or more correctly the ubiqious
communications it represents was phase two.
difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple;
and the beauty of VMS
is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
Around the same time I got a Unix the unsystem teeshirt. UNIX in
a no symbol (red slashed circle). By time it was getting somewhat
worn AT&T made unix a DOD standard and Ultrix was hot soon after.
Allison
26 Sep
26 Sep
10:05 a.m.
New subject: Our fine educational system
From: Bill Pechter <pechter(a)pechter.dyndns.org>
Well, I think he was figuring the killer app was a smart terminal device
(PDT or better with small local hard disk) and a fast network connection
to a timesharing operation (kind of like a cross between Compuserve
and a kind of Network Utility Company which would maintain the storage
and apps, fix bugs and supply you with a service.
This would keep Joe User from having to become their own System
Admin/System Manager/Development Programmer/Hardware Support Tech.
I think the Oracle Network Computer venture and NetAppliance was close
to what Ken Olson would've envisioned. ('Course it would've been Vax
Clusters on the server end...)
You're in good company:
Keep in mind I had little touch with leadign edge tech back
in 70/71 when I made my school choices. I was fixing tube
based equippment mostly and an IC was rather crude stuff.
"There is no reason for any individual to
have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
In one sense he was right but the desktop and killer apps
like spreadsheets and user friendly databases were phase
one and new. It took more than that to get the kitchen
computer real. The internet or more correctly the ubiqious
communications it represents was phase two.
difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's
simple; and the beauty of VMS
is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
Around the same time I got a Unix the unsystem teeshirt. UNIX in
a no symbol (red slashed circle). By time it was getting somewhat
worn AT&T made unix a DOD standard and Ultrix was hot soon after.
Allison
--
bpechter(a)monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
27 Sep
27 Sep
9:23 a.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases (Was: Our fine educational system (was: Login on VMS))
ajp166 wrote:
"There is
no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
In one sense he was right but the desktop and killer apps
like spreadsheets and user friendly databases were phase
one and new. It took more than that to get the kitchen
computer real. The internet or more correctly the ubiqious
communications it represents was phase two. 
10:11 a.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases (Was: Our fine educational system (was: Login on VMS))
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000 09:23:08 -0400 Jerome Fine
<jhfine(a)idirect.com> wrote:
I think that it would be helpful to have a discussion
on the different
phases of the "computer" market with a view to identifying the
characteristics to be expected for the next phase. Based on
40 years of seeing the market charge, I have a bit of perspective,
but I am probably so out of touch with the current market that
I don't have the needed insight to identify the next phase. So, how
about some comments?
I think of the time from 1977 to about 1984 as the "Punk"
period in computer design. Back then, anybody with a crazy
idea and a soldering iron could build a machine, scribble a
manual and sell to the unsuspecting public. Rather like
some bands of the time :-)
The results were nowhere near as polished and professional
as later versions, but they were cheap and, well, lively.
I'm thinking of the kind of machine where you got a bare
PCB, seven-segment LEDs, a bad TV modulator, a badly
photocopied manual, awful keyboards and the like.
I think one of the biggest signs of a Punk computer is the
lack of any plastic mouldings -- punks can't afford
toolmaking for that! Ship it in a bent-up metal box!
Botch something together with fibreglass!
PS. Punk computers aren't beige. Orange, maybe, not beige.
--
John Honniball
Email: John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England
11:51 a.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases (Was: Our fine educational system (was: Login on VMS))
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Jerome Fine wrote:
I think that it would be helpful to have a discussion on the different
phases of the "computer" market with a view to identifying the
characteristics to be expected for the next phase. Based on
40 years of seeing the market charge, I have a bit of perspective,
but I am probably so out of touch with the current market that
I don't have the needed insight to identify the next phase. So, how
about some comments?
Phase I - Characterized by very high hardware costs for tube type
computers and a total lack of operating systems - up to about 1960?
Dominated by IBM
Not really computers IMHO (no flames please). These systems were
wired up with patch cables to perform specific calculations, then
rewired for the next. Although the patch cables can be considered
a form of 'stored program', it's just not the same.
Phase II - Characterized by the first introduction of
transistors,
many more small companies along with the emergence of Snow
White (IBM) and the Seven Dwarfs (Burroughs, DEC, UNIVAC,
CDC, Wang, ?, ?). Some operating systems started to emerge -
up to about 1975 - Still dominated by IBM
Operating systems weren't available until memory became small
and cheap enough to give up large portion to a resident I/O
library which included functions that weren't needed by the
currently operating program. Anyone have an example?
Phase III - Characterized by the start of LSI.
Hardware costs were
still high and operating systems were mostly bundled. Volume was
still low in most cases - up to about 1985 - IBM was still the major
player, but no longer so dominant
MSDOS wasn't available separate from the hardware until much later.
I remember running a copied version of DOS on a brand new '286 clone
I built from parts purchased from Jameco. I searched high and low,
and couldn't find MSDOS unbundled anywhere. This was about a year or
so after the '286 was released (early '90s? I don't remember)
Phase IV - Here I start to become less able to see the
market. I know
that M$ started to become important along with Intel. In addition,
the internet was just starting to become useful and wide spread although
nowhere near the 2000 situation. The marketing model was about to
shift from low volume/high mark-up to high volume/low mark-up as
MS-DOS started to penetrate and the PC stated to become a
commodity item. IBM become less important. Can someone else
help to define this Phase IV? - up to about 1993???????
Hmmm... I think you've blurred the lines a bit too much here. The PC
market with MS software became mainstream in the mid to late 80's.
IIRC, that is when PC's (and to a much lesser extent Macs) became
standard equipment on people's desktops. The internet was being used
by universities since the early 80's, and the basic tools were in place
ftp,mail,archie,gopher,etc. (anybody remember veronica?)
The WWW wasn't 'invented' until the mid-90s. My first exposure
was NCSA-mosaic in '94, prior to the founding of Netscape by
the students who wrote mosaic.
Phase V - The internet starts to become very
important. Linux
becomes available. How do these two aspect interrelate? What
are the dominant features of Phase V? Will Phase V continue
for a few more years?
Linux 'is' because of the internet (but not vice-versa). Very few
people could afford the costs to copy an operating systems onto
floppies and nobody had a 9-track tape attached to their PC
(well almost nobody, I hung around some odd characters).
The wide availablility of the internet made it cheap and easy
to download.
Also, most people forget Linus T. only wrote the Linux kernel
(copied portions from Minix IIRC). The remainder is the Free
Software Foundation clones of the AT&T Unix tools (gcc, etc).
Linux wouldn't exist without these tools also.
Phase VI - Here is the key aspect of why I am sending
this email!!
Is it possible by looking at the past 50 years to identify the key
characteristics of Phase VI (which are probably already present)
which will take us up to 2010? Notice that I think that the number
of years in a given Phase seems to decrease. Is that correct?
If possible, the goal of this discussion would be to achieve some
sort of overall agreement on the different past phases (not really
too important) and some sort of forecast on what the next phase(s)
will consist of. If even the probable characteristics of the next
phase can be identified, that would seem to be a major achievement.
My stake in the ground:
1) Very few On-Demand services (music, video, etc). The current
bandwidth has trouble supporting the limited number of users running
'conventional' music and video feeds (everyone gets the same feed).
It will not be possible to supply everyone with their own selection
of audio and video feeds. You might have noticed there aren't
commercials (AT&T?) advertising movies on demand anymore.
2) Continued net congestion, with the creation of more private
high speed networks. As network bandwidth increases, more users will
jump on, reducing the available bandwidth to the current level of
pain. This is self regulating. As the network gets slower, fewer
people use it, speeding it up. Companies that can afford it will
use private high-speed networks for internal communication. This
is going to be a huge growth area, but will plateau relativly
quickly since the number of companies that can afford such a service
is small.
3) A continued move away from standalone PCs, toward the net-pliance
system. Based on the failure of DivX, I don't think people will
rent software, so the appliance needs to be programmable and upgradable,
so a secure facility for selling software across the internet needs
to be developed. Perhaps software manufactures should give away
CD-ROMs with their latest wares in demo mode, and sell the keys to
unlock varying levels of functionality.
4) A move back to the glass walled computer room. IT departments
are beginning to realize the cost of upgrading everyone's desktop
machines every few years. The current processor speeds are adequate
to run MS Word, and normal users don't need to upgrade (although
they want to). With the growth of high speed LANs, most companies
have moved back to a central RAID disk storage system, and have
started moving toward the 'compute farm'. Now each user has a local
(low power) system that is used to read email and write memos.
Computational problems are submitted to the racks of high power
machines for crunching. It is a lot easier and cheaper to upgrade
20 machines in a rack than 200 machines in peoples offices.
I suspect that while this topic is probably OT, it is
also a rather
interesting question and for most list members could be considered
vital for the future.
Somehow, when I read the comment that Allison made, I started to
think about these aspects and I began to wonder just what might
be in store. Being stuck (by choice) in RT-11 and the PDP-11
does not provide a reasonable viewpoint, but I suspect that the
younger members of this list might benefit from a bit of hindsight
and the older members could be helped by the younger members
in being able to identify future trends. Does this make any sense?
I am fascinated with older machines are OSs because I can understand
them. I doubt anyone understands EVERY function in MS Windows or
the Intel Pentium processor. The older systems are much simpler
in implementation, and more elegant in design.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
I'm all for identifying future trends. It's the only way I'm going
to get rich :) unless I win the lotto...
clint
7:20 p.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases (Was: Our fine educational system (was: Login on VMS))
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Jerome Fine wrote:
Hmmm! Seems like I remember something about punched card input to tube
type computers in that era. Wouldn't that qualify?
- don
I think that it would be helpful to have a discussion on the different
phases of the "computer" market with a view to identifying the
characteristics to be expected for the next phase. Based on
40 years of seeing the market charge, I have a bit of perspective,
but I am probably so out of touch with the current market that
I don't have the needed insight to identify the next phase. So, how
about some comments?
Phase I - Characterized by very high hardware costs for tube type
computers and a total lack of operating systems - up to about 1960?
Dominated by IBM
Not really computers IMHO (no flames please). These systems were
wired up with patch cables to perform specific calculations, then
rewired for the next. Although the patch cables can be considered
a form of 'stored program', it's just not the same. Phase II -
Characterized by the first introduction of transistors,
many more small companies along with the emergence of Snow
White (IBM) and the Seven Dwarfs (Burroughs, DEC, UNIVAC,
CDC, Wang, ?, ?). Some operating systems started to emerge -
up to about 1975 - Still dominated by IBM
Operating systems weren't available until memory became small
and cheap enough to give up large portion to a resident I/O
library which included functions that weren't needed by the
currently operating program. Anyone have an example?
Phase III - Characterized by the start of LSI.
Hardware costs were
still high and operating systems were mostly bundled. Volume was
still low in most cases - up to about 1985 - IBM was still the major
player, but no longer so dominant
MSDOS wasn't available separate from the hardware until much later.
I remember running a copied version of DOS on a brand new '286 clone
I built from parts purchased from Jameco. I searched high and low,
and couldn't find MSDOS unbundled anywhere. This was about a year or
so after the '286 was released (early '90s? I don't remember)
Phase IV - Here I start to become less able to
see the market. I know
that M$ started to become important along with Intel. In addition,
the internet was just starting to become useful and wide spread although
nowhere near the 2000 situation. The marketing model was about to
shift from low volume/high mark-up to high volume/low mark-up as
MS-DOS started to penetrate and the PC stated to become a
commodity item. IBM become less important. Can someone else
help to define this Phase IV? - up to about 1993???????
Hmmm... I think you've blurred the lines a bit too much here. The PC
market with MS software became mainstream in the mid to late 80's.
IIRC, that is when PC's (and to a much lesser extent Macs) became
standard equipment on people's desktops. The internet was being used
by universities since the early 80's, and the basic tools were in place
ftp,mail,archie,gopher,etc. (anybody remember veronica?)
The WWW wasn't 'invented' until the mid-90s. My first exposure
was NCSA-mosaic in '94, prior to the founding of Netscape by
the students who wrote mosaic.
Phase V - The internet starts to become very
important. Linux
becomes available. How do these two aspect interrelate? What
are the dominant features of Phase V? Will Phase V continue
for a few more years?
Linux 'is' because of the internet (but not vice-versa). Very few
people could afford the costs to copy an operating systems onto
floppies and nobody had a 9-track tape attached to their PC
(well almost nobody, I hung around some odd characters).
The wide availablility of the internet made it cheap and easy
to download.
Also, most people forget Linus T. only wrote the Linux kernel
(copied portions from Minix IIRC). The remainder is the Free
Software Foundation clones of the AT&T Unix tools (gcc, etc).
Linux wouldn't exist without these tools also.
Phase VI - Here is the key aspect of why I am
sending this email!!
Is it possible by looking at the past 50 years to identify the key
characteristics of Phase VI (which are probably already present)
which will take us up to 2010? Notice that I think that the number
of years in a given Phase seems to decrease. Is that correct?
If possible, the goal of this discussion would be to achieve some
sort of overall agreement on the different past phases (not really
too important) and some sort of forecast on what the next phase(s)
will consist of. If even the probable characteristics of the next
phase can be identified, that would seem to be a major achievement.
My stake in the ground:
1) Very few On-Demand services (music, video, etc). The current
bandwidth has trouble supporting the limited number of users running
'conventional' music and video feeds (everyone gets the same feed).
It will not be possible to supply everyone with their own selection
of audio and video feeds. You might have noticed there aren't
commercials (AT&T?) advertising movies on demand anymore.
2) Continued net congestion, with the creation of more private
high speed networks. As network bandwidth increases, more users will
jump on, reducing the available bandwidth to the current level of
pain. This is self regulating. As the network gets slower, fewer
people use it, speeding it up. Companies that can afford it will
use private high-speed networks for internal communication. This
is going to be a huge growth area, but will plateau relativly
quickly since the number of companies that can afford such a service
is small.
3) A continued move away from standalone PCs, toward the net-pliance
system. Based on the failure of DivX, I don't think people will
rent software, so the appliance needs to be programmable and upgradable,
so a secure facility for selling software across the internet needs
to be developed. Perhaps software manufactures should give away
CD-ROMs with their latest wares in demo mode, and sell the keys to
unlock varying levels of functionality.
4) A move back to the glass walled computer room. IT departments
are beginning to realize the cost of upgrading everyone's desktop
machines every few years. The current processor speeds are adequate
to run MS Word, and normal users don't need to upgrade (although
they want to). With the growth of high speed LANs, most companies
have moved back to a central RAID disk storage system, and have
started moving toward the 'compute farm'. Now each user has a local
(low power) system that is used to read email and write memos.
Computational problems are submitted to the racks of high power
machines for crunching. It is a lot easier and cheaper to upgrade
20 machines in a rack than 200 machines in peoples offices.
I suspect that while this topic is probably OT,
it is also a rather
interesting question and for most list members could be considered
vital for the future.
Somehow, when I read the comment that Allison made, I started to
think about these aspects and I began to wonder just what might
be in store. Being stuck (by choice) in RT-11 and the PDP-11
does not provide a reasonable viewpoint, but I suspect that the
younger members of this list might benefit from a bit of hindsight
and the older members could be helped by the younger members
in being able to identify future trends. Does this make any sense?
I am fascinated with older machines are OSs because I can understand
them. I doubt anyone understands EVERY function in MS Windows or
the Intel Pentium processor. The older systems are much simpler
in implementation, and more elegant in design.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
I'm all for identifying future trends. It's the only way I'm going
to get rich :) unless I win the lotto...
clint
9:42 p.m.
New subject: Availability of MS-DOS (was: Computer Market Phases (Was: Our fine educational system (was: Login on VMS))
On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
MSDOS wasn't available separate from the hardware
until much later.
I remember running a copied version of DOS on a brand new '286 clone
I built from parts purchased from Jameco. I searched high and low,
and couldn't find MSDOS unbundled anywhere. This was about a year or
so after the '286 was released (early '90s? I don't remember)
The gray market around here was so extensive that virtually nobody knows
that it WASN'T available! (in THEORY, you could only buy MS-DOS thorough
your OEM hardware supplier)
MS-DOS 5.00 (4/91) was the first version that was available as a MICROS~1
retail product. There is widespread speculation that the unavailability
of MS-DOS as a retail product was due to an explicit deal between MICROS~1
and IBM, that ran out in 10 years. The original PC release was 8/11/81,
so the deal was probably made a few months before release.
BTW, the 286 was in the first half of the 80s.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
5:12 p.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases & a vision of the future
Hello Jerome
On 27-Sep-00, you wrote:
Jerome Fine replies:
Regards
--
Gary Hildebrand
Box 6184
St. Joseph, MO 64506-0184
816-662-2612
or
ghldbrd(a)ccp.com
I also seem to remember an article . . . . So, how
about some comments?
<<snip>>
Phase IV - Here I start to become less able to see the market. I know
that M$ started to become important along with Intel. In addition,
the internet was just starting to become useful and wide spread although
nowhere near the 2000 situation. The marketing model was about to
shift from low volume/high mark-up to high volume/low mark-up as
MS-DOS started to penetrate and the PC stated to become a
commodity item. IBM become less important. Can someone else
help to define this Phase IV? - up to about 1993???????
CP/M, the first widely accepted o/s, disappears as IBM speaketh from on
high, and gives the nod to MS-DOS.
Apple. And the clone wars, such as Apple vs. Franklin, and the PC clones.
The market was trying to get away from one or two major players.
And then the advent of Atari and Commodore, making microcomputers affordable
to the masses.
Graphic o/s became the dominant theme, started by Macintosh and Amiga, and
later picked up by Billy Gates & company. Microsoft reverses the
diversification trend and becomes the de facto industry standard.
Phase V - The internet starts to become very important. Linux
becomes available. How do these two aspect interrelate? What
are the dominant features of Phase V? Will Phase V continue
for a few more years?
We see microprocessors in virtually everything, from PalmPilots to cars to
microwave ovens.
Phase VI - Here is the key aspect of why I am sending this email!!
Is it possible by looking at the past 50 years to identify the key
characteristics of Phase VI (which are probably already present)
which will take us up to 2010? Notice that I think that the number
of years in a given Phase seems to decrease. Is that correct?
If possible, the goal of this discussion would be to achieve some
sort of overall agreement on the different past phases (not really
too important) and some sort of forecast on what the next phase(s)
will consist of. If even the probable characteristics of the next
phase can be identified, that would seem to be a major achievement.
I see the loss of Microsoft as the industry leader, because of the
anti-trust breakup. Linux and other *nix like o/s will dominate the Third
world because of one factor -- cost. Eventually the two philosophies will
merge, and software will have to be made to run under either system, or any
other system, such as Mac OS?? The same as the fact there are many car
manufacturers, but they all use the 4 cycle gasoline engine with few
exceptions.
The internet will make print advertising almost non-existent. E-mail will
replace the Post Office as a standard means of communication. Cable TV will
be delivered via digital fiber hookups to every home, and the microcomputer
will become Joe Sixpack's eye on the world. From telephone, television,
security, to e-commerce. Everyone will have network interfacing standard in
the home, like electrical and phone wiring is now.
And people will have to give up more and more of their privacy and
independence to accomplish this. Many already rely 100% on the
software/hardware to do their creative thinking for them. Computers can
play brilliant chess games but can't write symphonies or create works of
art.
The sad part is that electronic data, unlike books, can be easily changed,
as there is a self limiting source. Books are safest (because of the sheer
numbers involved) from tampering. and they are low tech, thanks to
Gutenberg.
The "number of the beast" from Revelation may very well be your internet
address. I'm writing a sci-fi novel on this theme called "Numbers".
11:48 a.m.
New subject: Computer Market Phases & a vision of the future
At 03:12 PM 9/27/00 -0600, Gary Hildebrand wrote:
CP/M, the first widely accepted o/s, disappears as IBM
speaketh from on
high, and gives the nod to MS-DOS.
And if they hadn't, we'd still be able to type "user 1" in a
command shell today. :-) Uh oh, it worked:
E:\WINNT\system32>user 1
E:\WINNT\system32>
E:\WINNT\system32>which user.exe
Found E:\WINNT\system32\user.exe
- John
8637
days inactive
8639
days old
8 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ajp166＠bellatlantic.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
donm＠cts.com -
ghldbrd＠ccp.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
jhfine＠idirect.com -
John.Honniball＠uwe.ac.uk -
pechter＠pechter.dyndns.org -
vaxman＠uswest.net