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George[_1_] George[_1_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,244
Default Usenet going out of fashion

On 11/27/2011 5:42 PM, dsi1 wrote:
> On 11/27/2011 8:58 AM, phaeton wrote:
>> I still like to think that USENET will persist, as well as IRC (which
>> is very alive, thankfully). Like notbob (or not like bob?) I'm also
>> in the "desktop computers are not going away" camp. The people who
>> are getting that excited over tablets to say this apparently don't use
>> their computer for much.

>
> My view of this is that the desktop was mostly an unfortunate accident.
> A diversion of a couple of decades brought about by the needs of
> backwards compatibility to the original 8088 microprocessor, the
> availability of dirt cheap RAM, and the economics of planned
> obsolescence. We're left with big monsters that have to be loaded up
> with gigantic OSes when we turn them on, requiring careful maintenance
> and replacement with faster and better hardware/software, robust power
> supplies of at least 400W or so, huge amounts of RAM and hard drive
> space and a good amount of floor/desktop space.
>
> The new computers will be lightweight and portable and will be a useful,
> easy-to-use, multipurpose tool. It will turn on and off quickly, we'll
> use simple, cheap, quick loading, programs and it will connect us with
> everybody on this planet. It's the dream of the personal computer realized.


Its also a dream for lots of organizations. If all of your data is held
by others what privacy do you have?

>
> In the future, the desktop will be viewed in the same way that the cars
> of the 70s we a really bad time in it's history.
>