Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

[Ali]

> After we're all gone, what will future generations think of us? That we
> developed new hardware and software solely to play games?
> 
> Wow.

In a word: yes.

I am being a bit tongue in cheek when I say that but not entirely. Initially
this may not have been true - i.e. in the 80s people upgraded so CAD
applications would run faster, or 1-2-3 worked faster but at a certain point
(I say early Pentium era) computers got fast "enough" for 99% of the
business applications out there. What continues to drive the needs for
faster/newer systems has been bloatware (specially the OS which requires
more and more and overhead) and games/entertainment (e.g. initially playing
DVDs, then BD, then streaming, interactive web sites, Flash, etc..). 

I seriously doubt anyone needs a new graphics card and upgraded CPU every
six to twelve months to make sure Excel is running "fast enough". The people
who are going through voluntary frequent upgrade cycles are the gamers who
need the fastest/latest machines to play the newest games. As I type this I
am using a nine year old Thinkpad w/ a HDD (not SSD). The only thing I have
done is upgraded to a full 8GB of RAM. I run Win 7, Office 2007, and IE for
the most part in this machine and it is still as zippy as it was when I got
it.

So when you look back at the last twenty years of PC development new HW was
essentially developed to continue generate profit for the manufacturers and
this was justified by more and more demanding games/entertainment software. 

-Ali