Posts by Stomfi

Re: sheeple

If you step back in time for a moment and switch on your unbiased point of view you could look at what was happening to desktop computer development before the IBM PC arrived on the scene as an intelligent office terminal.

The machines we had can be compared with todays offerings as they were just as powerful, had just as good GUI WIMP interfaces, had 19" colour screens, had optical 3 button mice, did sound and video just as well, had Ethernet LANs and were connected to the old Internet. The SGI Indy is a good example.

Invented in 1974, by 1984 these GUI systems were considered a step along the way to a more user friendly system, and the plan was to build inexpensive human interfaces that had interactive voice, 3D and writing recognition, and peer to peer Nationally and Internationally interconnected grids of 256bit machines for computing by 1995.

Unfortunately for the industry Microsoft brought out Flight Simulator for the IBM PC and the wants of all the millions of uninformed users channeled the available development money back into systems that were already out of date at the time.

Just think, if Bill Gates hadn't dominated computing, we would have the industry plan by 1995, and what marvels would we have had today.

You can turn off your unbiased view point now. Hope you still think Bill is a great guy.

Another 1928

The throw away at the end should be of great importance to all who watch our current economy.

A technological revolution that started 30 or so years before and brought forth the small personal engine and other such delights, caused a paradigm shift in how food was produced, how goods were produced, how money was made, how work was done, how workers were trained or retrained, how people were entertained and how they were kept healthy.

New ways of doing all these things put control and capital into the pockets of new players, while changes in processes made existing workers poorer or redundant, enhanced health practices and more available food through mechanisation, created population growth. Demand for food outstripped supply causing inflation. Housing became less affordable, superannuation lost adequate value, the new rich got richer and the others poorer.

Old players tried to stave off losses by investing in new ideas, and the stock market started a pattern of rises and falls until 1929 when it crashed.

Today we are 30 years into another technological revolution, and all the events preceding the '29 crash are repeating. No wonder Shuttleworth wants to bring one of the significant pointers to your attention. If there is a crash, the winners for the next generation will be the ones whose products are really cheap, like those of Linux vendors.