🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
> But most office clerical work needs no more than an XT 8088 machine
> and WordPerfect.  They don't need color, SPICE, or a large database.
> Let's hope these clericals are doomed, or the PC industry will die as
> they flourish.
> 
> To keep the PC industry thriving we must produce many more technicians
> and design engineers, to use high-MIPS CPUs in design optimization and
> simulation.  There is a big possibility that the U.S.  educational
> system will let us down.

How interesting, to suggest adjusting US educational priorities to insure
a stable market for computers. Note that I share your concern about our
assuredly dangerous shift away from technical education at the same time
the need for it grows. However, I have to be amused at the concept of
the computer industry cloaking itself in the mantle that GM once reserved
for itself, to whit: "What is good for GM is good for the country..." :-)

Most market-driven enterprises attempt to adjust their operations to
accommodate the realities of the market, rather than adjusting the
market to fit their own perception of reality. The latter is, of course,
the province of the oligopoly. Having grown large enough to largely free
itself from the disturbing effects of competition and consumer opinion,
the oligopoly applies its considerable resources to the important task
of social engineering (or managing demand). The oligopoly seeks to
bring about massive changes in the way people go about their lives,
to insure a continuing need for its product. The automobile industry
in the USA has enjoyed unequaled success in this.

The computer industry can learn from the automobile industry. The
conputer industry should not have to kill as many people or cause as
much social distruption to realize similar success, since computer
technology is by itself inherently benign. However, the computer
industry must grasp several analogies:

1. the analogy between freeways and public-access computer networks,
and the indispensable role of government in providing infrastructure
on this scale; 

2. how an isolated computer is like a stationary engine used, for
example, for pumping water;

3. how a widely-networked computer is like an engine mounted on a
wheeled vehicle, able to take its owner anywhere that time, fuel, and
paved infrastructure permit;

4. how new technology requires new infrastructure, and must compete
with old technology and old infrastucture: the motor industry had to
specifically target and undermine the rail industry, and now the
computer industry must do much the same to the motor industry.

Consider the analogy (2). A computer performing some well-defined,
simple task dealing only with local information is like an engine that
sits in one place and does one thing, for example pump water.  Since
demand for water has some upper limit, once you pump that much, you
don't need a bigger engine. Now consider analogy (3). Give the
machine a vast world to move around in, and the user will
spontaneously discover endless new things to use it for.

So if anyone wants my prescription to keep MIPS demand high, I say a
big chunk of the future is in telecommunications. PROVIDED that the
industry can clean up its act enough to make sending information
between two computers as simple as establishing a connection between
two telephones, then the demand for computer power will have no upper
bound. This is the simple consequence of Parkinson's Law applied to
computers.

Parkinson noted that bureaucracies tend to grow by a constant
percentage every year regardless of whether they have any work to do,
since all the employees in the bureau generate work for each other to
do. Everyone has to read each other's minutes, negotiate their
differences, listen to each other's complaints, overcome personality
clashes, etc. Thus they each feel overburdened and pressure for staff
increases. Staff increases accomplish nothing, of course, except to
give the existing employees more people to spend their time
interacting with. Since two computers must perform a considerable
amount of work to talk with each other, the analogy is obvious, with
the important exception that computers occasionally do useful work.

Consider how the computer industry is now ceding several $ billions in
demand for telecom to the FAX market. FAX technology is inferior to
existing e-mail technology in almost every respect, except one: ease
of use. As Peter F. Drucker says, the world will never lack for
uneducated and incompetent people. By failing to make your product
accessible to them, you limit your market to a minor niche.

The 8088-PC-bound desk clerk languishes in a mostly isolated world.
Much of this has to do with the impedance mismatch between the
computer and it communication channel with the outside world. The
mismatch is between the speed of light and the speed of paper.
Essentially all the information entering and leaving the typical small
office moves either on paper or via the spoken word. Obviously,
requiring a human clerk to sit at either end of the communication
channel and translate things for the computer puts a real limit on how
much work the computer can do. To escape from this Curse of the
Pharoes (i.e., papyrus), the computer industry must understand this
principle:

Using computers to generate paper faster is like strapping a jet
engine to a horse.

Sure, you might gallop a little faster that way, but a bigger engine
isn't going to win the race. When a new power source shows up, you
have to re-think your entire concept of "vehicle."

'Nuff said.

Dan Mocsny
dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu