Re: PC or Mac?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill wrote:

>Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>> The digital divide is more cultural than economic.  Anyone can get a
>> ~166MHz Pentium PC with OS and leftover apps, a modem, and a monitor
>> for less than $50 in any city.
>
>In these parts a 15" monitor would be about CAN$50 and obtaining
>inexpensive, legal software is quite difficult.  Even if you could
>get that CAN$75 computer, you are still left with the psychological
>barrier and technical problems.

Curious--in the US, these machines are considered door stops.
And monitors are a _liability_, since in many communities, even
a working monitor cannot be discarded but must be taken to a
recycling center and disposed of for a fee!

>This psychological barrier is not all that different from the one
>acting against the Apple II, it is mainly a difference in degree.

Agreed.  This is like someone on foot turning down a '74 Dodge
offered for $25, because he'd rather walk than be seen in it!  ;-)

>This is not about using 1980s technology in the 21st century.  It
>is about using a tools which are suitable to the task, and not
>having the market driving your decisions.  If you insist upon
>using a car analogy: is it impossible for you to use our streets
>and highways with a 1960's car?  Some automobile enthusiasts still
>use those.  What about a 1970's or 1980's car?  Many less wealthy
>individuals still use those.  Indeed, the so called high speed
>providers really don't want you unless you are using a 1995, or
>later, computer.

The highway analogy is not so apt, because a highway is a very
"loose" standard--just a wide ribbon of hard material.  This is
because highways must already support a very wide range of
vehicles reasonably well.  Perhaps the only parallel in the
computer world would be the QWERTY keyboard--virtually
standard across several decades and many architectures.

>  <snip>  Yet I
>am still going to insist that backwards compatibility should be the
>norm.  If there is a compelling reason for people to upgrade, people
>will.  If somebody does not have a compelling reason to upgrade, then
>they are not left with an all-or-nothing option.

Backwards compatibility is a fine idea, as long as it doesn't
compromise the basic value proposition of a new technology.
Many would say, for example, that NTSC color TV was seriously
compromised by its compatibility constraints.  (I think that issue
is moot, since color TV could never have happened in the US
without compatibility with the already large and relatively recent
installed base of monochrome sets.)

But backward compatibility in the computer industry has been
very limiting in terms of the exploration of the space of possibilities.
We are still shackled by the ghost of compatibility with the 8086,
with the FAT file system, and with first ISA and now PCI compatibility.
Each of these both limits what can be done for a price, and raises
the cost of going beyond them--if only by requiring support for more
than one way of doing similar things.

Perhaps the QWERTY keyboard itself is one of the most awful
examples of standardization gone awry.  It's design objective was
to slow down human typists so that they would be less prone to
jamming the keys!  In an age of n-key-rollover, this is a liability
not a virtue, and a keyboard layout designed for better speed is
appropriate--but virtually unattainable, given the "installed base"
of people who have adapted to the standard.

Of course, a keyboard layout can be made switchable, but the
keycaps are another issue.  ;-)

British computer scientist Byian Randell once said (and perhaps
he was paraphrasing someone else) that "a philosophy of evolution
not revolution is, in fact, a philosophy of fewer but bloodier revolutions."
And so it is.  As evolutionary development, constrained by backward
compatibility, falls further and further short of the full capability that
technology can deliver, eventually a major revolution--a paradigm
shift, if you will--ensues, which pays little or no homage to the past,
but rushes beyond it into the future.

So everyone gets their wish, eventually:  evolution for a while, then
a headlong rush of change, compatibility be damned.

We all just try not to get stuck with a big BetaMax library...   ;-)

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/