Where will be in 10 years?
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
Talk about price changes! I remember paying (Australian) $499 for 2Mb of RAM for my Amiga 1000 (Zorro port ?? If I remember correctly...) and just the other day I pays US$62 for 128Mb of memory for my laptop. Better than the A$30000 it would have cost at those old prices! Anyway, as for the future. I think the scenerio you have outlined above could be true (including the unmentioned tera byte hard drive), if there is a need for such storage; but I don't think there will be (unless people want to record every minute of their lives). I think the memory/hard drive division will be destroyed, will persistant memory taking the place of both (see articles Infineon and Saifun To Co-Develop Flash Memory and AMD’s 32-Bit Wide Memory in a Flash). Have fun, Paul Westcott.
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
Thoughts? You said thoughts? Hmmm... The disk won't thrash because there won't be any hard disk. So, people will store pirated songs in RAM. The processor will be so powerful, the "PC" will actually be an add-on box installed in the fridge. The PC will control all household gadgets via home-wireless. All that will be voice-enabled. So, what you will do is sit on couch, turn towards the fridge and shout loudly (just to overcome the interference from the compressor noise, your kids yelling at each other, and neighbour's systems): "Hey, computer, show me the game!," and open a can of... Then, exactly at the most decisive moment of the game, the power company will cut off the power. (You didn't think about that part 10 years hence, did you?) So, next day, you will curse the universe, logon to CP and beg the rest of us on instructions on how to get your "PC" going again. We will help you out. You will have tough time sorting out wisecracks from authentic help. Someone will even voice-post: "Is this ethical?" You will curse him aloud before someone else points out that the MSDN developer license allows you to do that. But the curse will, nevertheless, have generated a fault in SpeechManager of the OS ("Unrecognized curse. Say OK to proceed, Cancel to abort"). You will respond to that by uttering a second curse at the universe again, physically walk to the TV, and switch it on for the game, and collapse on the couch. But this second curse at the universe would have been recognized by the PC, and instead of your favorite game, you will be shown the streaming interactive video of some old people in a club playing baroque-period music. Your mother-in-law will recognize you (via WebCam on top of TV) and... Ah, thoughts... ------- Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. (Francis Bacon) Nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed. (Ayn Rand)
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
There are no more good apps for PCs. The new emphasis has to be on improving display technology and CPU miniaturization until we can get excellent wearable HUD displays. This will actually bring new applications, not to mention the freedom of being able to interact with your computer anywhere (when coupled with wireless). Better give this idea a while -- the computer industry has such archaic thinking that we will probably be stuck with our keyboards and monitors for a while yet.
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
A time will come when PC makers like Dell will give you $ 1000 if you buy their best buy $ 100 value 64 Way Pentium 4 machine with 1 Trillion bytes of RAM running WinCE. LOL. Farhan Noor Qureshi ;) :-D :cool:
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Thoughts? You said thoughts? Hmmm... The disk won't thrash because there won't be any hard disk. So, people will store pirated songs in RAM. The processor will be so powerful, the "PC" will actually be an add-on box installed in the fridge. The PC will control all household gadgets via home-wireless. All that will be voice-enabled. So, what you will do is sit on couch, turn towards the fridge and shout loudly (just to overcome the interference from the compressor noise, your kids yelling at each other, and neighbour's systems): "Hey, computer, show me the game!," and open a can of... Then, exactly at the most decisive moment of the game, the power company will cut off the power. (You didn't think about that part 10 years hence, did you?) So, next day, you will curse the universe, logon to CP and beg the rest of us on instructions on how to get your "PC" going again. We will help you out. You will have tough time sorting out wisecracks from authentic help. Someone will even voice-post: "Is this ethical?" You will curse him aloud before someone else points out that the MSDN developer license allows you to do that. But the curse will, nevertheless, have generated a fault in SpeechManager of the OS ("Unrecognized curse. Say OK to proceed, Cancel to abort"). You will respond to that by uttering a second curse at the universe again, physically walk to the TV, and switch it on for the game, and collapse on the couch. But this second curse at the universe would have been recognized by the PC, and instead of your favorite game, you will be shown the streaming interactive video of some old people in a club playing baroque-period music. Your mother-in-law will recognize you (via WebCam on top of TV) and... Ah, thoughts... ------- Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. (Francis Bacon) Nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed. (Ayn Rand)
LOL :) Although part of your description is already true for me! I holler, "Turn on the game and get me a Canadian" and my lovely better half magically appears. It's taken years of training to accomplish though and not without some hardship on my part.;P Chris
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There are no more good apps for PCs. The new emphasis has to be on improving display technology and CPU miniaturization until we can get excellent wearable HUD displays. This will actually bring new applications, not to mention the freedom of being able to interact with your computer anywhere (when coupled with wireless). Better give this idea a while -- the computer industry has such archaic thinking that we will probably be stuck with our keyboards and monitors for a while yet.
Years ago, the chairman of IBM declared that there was only a market for few dozen machines in the US. I'm sure that someone else, in a better position than you or I to see the future, declared that computers would be good for mathematical research, word processing and little more. Neither of those have proven accurate, seeing the future is very difficult. Capitalism is all about creating a product to fill a need. If there isn't the need, deep pocketed companies like Microsoft and Intel will create that need. Case in point, Microsoft's recent upgrade policy for Office XP. People hardly use a fraction of the capabilities of Office 97 or Office 2000, but they still worry about the price for upgrading to the version AFTER the up-coming Office XP! Regarding an earlier post on power-failures, I assume you're talking about California. While I'm sure the problems came as a surprise to some, I find it hard to believe that the big companies didn't see this coming. Let's see... increasing demand for power, fixed rates, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) attitude to building power plants... yeah, this will work. ;) See, what you need to do is follow the example of Washington State. You build power plants that you don't need far away from your population centers. Yes, right on the border of another country, let's call it "Canada" for argument sake. Right next to their major population center in that area. See, no problem with lack of power, no problem with your own population! :( Peter
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
Ah, for the good old days when computers sat in their own glass walled shrine and hard drives were the size of washing machines. I remember when people were predicting that silicon based computing technology would stagnate in the late 1980's. There are plenty of applications that can suck up unlimited memory and computing power: 3D games - People will always want larger and more realistic enrironments. A digital home movie library - A library of the 1000 top classic movies will do for starters. Real time language translation - The ultimate palm "power app" A personal library - I would be happy with 100,000 volumes on topics that interest me, as well as the complete back issues of several hundred journals. A real digital assistant (not Clippy) that could find citations and create summaries would also be nice. AI persona's - Cyberlover, extension of oneself, or just someone to chat with.
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
Faster computers is like building more lanes on the Beltway. No matter what they do, there're always full at 5:30 PM. There will always be a need/desire for more speed. I can't actually recall anyone telling me "You know, I bought a computer last year that was too powerful and had too much memory...". Ed
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This last weekend I purchased a 256 Meg memory upgrade for my computer for $80. 10 years ago, prices on hard disks had come down dramatically and I bought a 200 meg drive for ~$650. Since you can today buy a 40 gig drive for $100, I am wondering if I will be able to buy a 40 gig memory module for $80 in 10 years. If so, how would this impact software development? I think the lowest end PCs are more than adequate for 99% of the popuplation. Someone is going to have to come up with a new application to justify buying new hardware. Thoughts? Chris Hafey
I'll still be sitting here with the same bunch of clowns, trying to get printing to work. X| Christian #include