Interesting bit from Byte
holly
A friend of mine just read this to me. I thought I should share it.
I won't make any comments one way or another.
From _Byte_, July, 1988...
Part of the problem is that "computers are not powerful enough to be used
at home for anything productive," says Neil Harris, Director of Product
Marketing at Atari. "I think the ST and the Amiga are in the right
direction, but we're still not there yet." Harris also blames the industry
press for not covering the Atari machines enough.
Neil Harris
There was a long panel discussion held at West Coast Computer Faire in March.
My talk centered on the reasons why computers in the home had not caught on
to the big extent expected in the earlier part of the decade -- people
rarely use the computer for purposes like personal finance, for example.
I postulated that advances in technology would change this. For example,
imagine a scanner which could read text and put it into the appropriate
place in a database. So you could feed in your checkbook and it would
create your budget information automatically. With faster processors,
better AI software, and cheaper scanners (all reasonable to expect within
the next few years) this could be a real product.
Without this, home finance is a painful operation, involving many hours of
drudgery keying in the information.
Office computing has taken off because the office has a labor force
available to handle this kind of job. The home needs more powerful
technology.
<sigh> Pick on the press and see where it gets you...
--->Neil
--
Neil Harris, Director of Product Marketing
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GEnie: NHARRIS, BIX: neilharris, CIS: 70007,1135, Office: 408-745-2160
Gerry Wheeler
> There was a long panel discussion held at West Coast Computer Faire in
> March. My talk centered on the reasons why computers in the home had
> not caught on to the big extent expected in the earlier part of the
> decade -- people rarely use the computer for purposes like personal
IMHO there seem to be several things precluding the everyday use of home
computers.
One, as you said Neil, is the difficulty of transferring data from real
life into bits. And, as an associated factor, nobody is going to do on
the computer what they didn't do on paper. People can't expect a
computer to magically organise their lives.
Another factor, I think, is the size of the computer. Few people are
willing to give up two square feet of their dining room table just so
they can read the newspaper electronically instead of the usual way.
Ditto for the kitchen counter. I think ultimately we'll need to have
thin screens that mount on the wall. Sci fi movies have been doing that
for ages.
Of course, it's hard to hang the computer on the wall too, so the wall
unit will likely be just a terminal connected to the computer in the
basement. If that same computer is going to support all the other
terminals in the house, it'll have to be multitasking, right?
So, who wants to be the first to put all this into practice? And what
happened to Alan Kay's Dynabook?
--
Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251
Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels
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