🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <rfenney-020895000216@rfenney.slip.netcom.com>,
rfenney@netcom.com (Robert J. Fenney) wrote:

> I really can't believe everyone is complaining so! Could you OCR a document
> 5 years ago? could you build a complete business plan on your computer 10
> years ago. Could you Scan photograghs, movies, you voice activated
> software. The Internet was only a research program 5 years ago. Look at all
> of the educational software, the games, the entertainment, the
> communications. Look at how poeple are starting to be enabled to disover
> new and creative ways of doing thing. We would not have any of the DNA
> based medications if it wasn't for the advance software AND COMPUTER
> HARDWARE!
> 
> We have seen a doubling of computer power every 18 months for the last 10
> years. We are about to see exponential (maybe geometric) growth in the
> amount of computer power, storage, and communications bandwidth starting in
> the next 12 months. First we will see SMP systems and then MP systems! We
> are going to need ALL of those resources and more to deliver the multimidia
> solution that we are starting to cookup. VR is going to be reachable on
> your desktop shortly. The one major problem is SOFTWARE! The level of
> complexit in these systems is going to be a challange to manage! As we make
> computers more accessable to the non-technical users we are trading CPU
> cycles for easy of use. This is the only way they will be able to servive
> in the new world that WE the computer community is building. We realy are
> not giving them a choice. They have to learn these new widgets or they can
> work!

All of these are good points, but they primarly affect a small number of
people. I haven't OCR'd anything in two years, I haven't scanned anything
in two years. The internet shows real promise for the average Joe, though.
The problem with all of this rapid progress is that I can do 10x as many
things, but in order to do that I need to spend 10x as much time keeping
everything working. 

Computers need to be SIMPLE - Jobs had the right idea, he just couldn't
pull it all together and make it work over time. I don't want to
configure, upgrade, reformat - I want to produce. I do want a toaster
which does the things I need. I have gotten so much more productive now
that I've thrown almost all of my applications away. Filemaker,
Clarisworks and my net tools (and CW doubles for my email) - that's about
it. Hopefully OpenDoc/Cyberdog will allow me to roll them all into one
package. 

Sure the speed helps - but I think the things that people need to do today
are the same ones they needed to do 50 years ago they just need to do them
on the computer. How many people have impeccably well organized file
cabinets but the most god-awful mess of a hard drive? How about chucking a
few cycles towards helping people organize their electronic data? How many
people still start a memo from a blank slate? My memos are all almost
identical to one another, so I use a template - how about making *that*
the most prominant feature of an app rather than the new pig-latin medical
thesaurus with 43 more terms than the competition? 

Computers need to become basic tools rather than complex systems - there's
plenty of speed available to make that happen if anybody has the
motivation to do it.

-- 
Bob Cassidy
UC Irvine