🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5117@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes:
>
>SO, educate us. What are the high points, the low points, and such,
>from your vantage point?
>

The other night CNN had a 5+ minute story on TRON. They reported that the
TRONgroup (whatever it is officially called) included several European
vendors, and they went into some depth on a project to build a "smart
house" with about 10,000 microprocessors (mostly 8-bit it seemed). In
addition to the smart house, there was a smart office complex
underway. 

The "big wins" from having fully enlightened and mutually comunicating
applicances was that turning up the stereo would close the windows,
turn up the air conditioning, get turned down by the phone, etc. In
addition, turning on a light would result in more air conditioning.
The guiding principal was supposed to make life better and easier;
every design decision is supposed to be made from the user perspective ...

While CNN is most certainly not the best sort of medium for a
technical exposition, it seemed that the goals (or examples thereof)
could possibly justify the expensive of the massive wiring harness
(which they showed), the decreased reliabilty (I cannot see how
connecting my toaster and microwave to my reading light can _increase_
reliability of the system) and general increase in complexity.

In addition, the stated plan was to start with a sample house and
office bldg; work up to a city (big brother watches each toliet flush,
and reacts accordingly) then to a province (chiba ?) then to all
Japan, then to all the world ....

While this is probably a good warm up for building a large
multi-generation spaceship, the vision of a vast number of Z80's
communicating with some Fifth Generation Supercomputer with the big
payoff being that my heating and airconditioning might be 5% more
efficient (somehow having a few more thermostats didn't seem to occur
to them) does not seem all that interesting.

The TRON keyboard (very post dvorak), the communication protocols, and
many of the other subprojects are probably quite interesting. But the
fundamental mindset (presumning the CNN staff was doing due dilligence
... which is admittedly uncertain) seems wrong ... having appliances
talk to each other, across the world does not automatically make sense.

I am hoping that one of you NetLanders can enlighten me ... why are
the TRONfolks working so hard ... what are the problems they are
trying to solve. Until these are clearly articulated, arguments about
how many wires are needed to build a robust applicance communications
channel seem moot.



Keith H. Bierman      |*My thoughts are my own. Only my work belongs to Sun*
It's Not My Fault     |	Marketing Technical Specialist    ! kbierman@sun.com
I Voted for Bill &    |   Languages and Performance Tools. 
Opus  (* strange as it may seem, I do more engineering now     *)