Computer Expectations of Today, and a Decade Hence?

Luciq asks: "The other day I was cleaning out my closet and started reminiscing about all the good times I had with my 33Mhz 486DX. I got the machine 10 years ago just as the first Pentiums were coming out. With a 33Mhz processor, 212MB hard drive and a whopping 8MB of RAM, I could surf the net at 2400 baud, manipulate photos and even play games with full-screen video like The Seventh Guest. Today I use an Athlon XP 2400, 80GB HD, 512MB [not 512K!] RAM. While I can do some neat things with it, I must say that it's fallen short of the wonderous expectations I had for such a system in 1993 (no immersive VR?, no seamless voice recognition?). What expectations did you have for today's PC, 10 years ago and how does the reality match up? What do you expect from computing, 10 years from now?"

Comments

In 10 Years there will be

[dirtydiaper]

Every home will be eqquiped with a computer that contains SUPER PORN.. The files will have "Touch Abilities." Geek nation wide will contibute to this open source project to customize there own porn star..

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[Peridriga]

It's called your right hand...
Or your left if your in Russia...

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[Anonymous Coward]

Unexpected Unix Geek bonus: while performing fellatio, women can speak in regex.

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[s20451]

Geek nation wide will contibute to this open source project to customize there own porn star

Didn't they already do that? In 1985, even, with an 8088 or something?

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[Requiem]

In Soviet Russia, supermodels jerk off to you?

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[crazyphilman]

Oh, brother... I can see it now, my fellow programmers will come up with the following selection of delectables:

1. Russian Hacker model: She's six feet tall, very thin, black hair, ice-blue eyes, can kick your ass but chooses not to. Wears tight black jeans, a skintight black Linux T-shirt, and a leather jacket (with chains that jingle!). Dirty mind, friendly, but if you make a programming error, she ties you to a chair and mocks you, muttering, "Dahlink, RTFM". Hackable, with a XXX porno mode.

2. Japanese anime model 1 (techie chick): About five feet tall, thin, long black hair, green eyes, modernish hip clothes and weird cat ears. Randomly gets annoyed, produces a 1,000 pound hammer, and pulverizes you. Has no nipples or gonads. Warning to the orally fixated: she has little razor-sharp cat teeth which appear when she's feeling mischevious.

3. Japanese anime model 2 (Hentai model!): Like model 1, but instead of cat ears, teeth, etc, she has a schoolgirl uniform, nipples and gonads. Randomly "accidentally" opens a gate into hell, allowing huge perverted demons into this universe, which subsequently violate her "against her will". Beware: some owners have gotten a little too close to the action, resulting in, well, you know. The lawsuits have been settled.

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia jokes start YOU

Re:In 10 Years there will be

[CritterNYC]

Gonads? Dou you know what gonads are?

*sigh* Why must there be such Gonads and Strife?

See!

[themassiah]

Today I use an Athlon XP 2400, 80GB HD, 512K RAM.

Even after 10 years, 640K is *STILL* enough for anybody!

End of the BSOD

[StarOwl]

10 years ago, I wished for an end to the Blue Screens of Death.

I got my wish. I installed linux. :)

Re:End of the BSOD

[lightcycle]

One of the savers in xscreensaver mimicks errormessages from less fortunate oses, among others the BSOD. I have xscreensaver set for random saver, and even though I have been running linux exclusively for a year, and dual booted way longer than that, I still give a start whenever I walk in the room and there's a bsod on the screen. Guess my earlier Windows usage has scarred me for life.

GATES WAS RIGHT!!!

[GrandCow]

512K RAM

640K WAS enough!

I recall

[the_2nd_coming]

that when I moved from a 133 MHz pentium chip to a 266 k6-2 saying to my friend:

"who the hell needs more than 266 MHz!!! christ it is so damn fast!!!"

Same old same old

[Anonymous Coward]

"What do you expect from computing, 10 years from now?"

I am expecting immersive VR and seamless voice recognition.

Wow

[smoondog]

Almost every comment is pointing out that 512k typo. I bet that 512k wouldn't even hold all of them. Although my first reaction was, "Well that is his problem!"

-Sean

10 years from now

[Coneasfast]

In 10 years from now, we will have super-fast computers, with an unthinkable amount of ram, and our planet will be ruled by damn dirty robots!

Yikes...

[mraymer]

This article is only a few minutes old and everyone is flaming poor Liciq for saying KB instead of MB. C'mon now, let's grant him a full Slashdot pardon. I mean, it's not like his mixing of MB and KB crashed a Mars lander or something, like NASA's mixing of metric/US measurements did. ;)

No keyboards

[KevMar]

What ever happened to the world with out keyboards and mice? Where all we have to do is say cool phrases like; "computer, file, menu, menu, menu, file, menu, manu, meeen u, men you, darn thing, never works. nooo, dont open word", click, click, click ....

I expect...

[TheOtherChimeraTwin]

the computers 10 years from now will be almost fast enough to run the antivirus software scans and updates to protect themselves from the worms and viruses. Hopefully there might be a cycle or two left over for the Windows XXXP 2010 updates.

Turbo Button

[cioxx]

It needs to make a comeback. I have a 2.4ghz box sitting under my desk, but would be delighted if Intel made a commitment to bring back the turbo button.

Push it, and you have successfully doubled the speed to 4.8ghz. That's the kind of innovation computer industry needs. Forget complicated overclocking.

In 10 years

[Dark Lord Seth]

... we might NOT have to read about SCO 3+ times a day on Slashdot.

Hey, one can dream, right? That and I'd like to see those diamond semiconducters with solid state nanostorage. That and Duke Nukem Forever.

DMCA-OS

[agendi]

Windows will be renamed to DMCA-OS, requiring a super broadband connection to facilitate all the traffic seeking permission to open your own work from yourself, the copyright owner from a central database in the US Patent Office.

SCO sueing toaster manufacturers for infringements on their newly acquired bread warming copyrights.

Gnome and KDE users in block wars.

My mother still not able to reply to email properly.

Any finally - your PDA Cluster will come with a car.

Re:512k?

[Gherald]

Megabits versus megabytes is basic stuff here.

Yes but so are typos.

Re:i expect perfection

[rudiger]

then get a mac ^_^

10 years from now I expect

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I'd hope for a girlfriend... oh... what I expect from computing? Dunno.

Re:i expect perfection

[Rysc]

That doesn't stop em asking, it just makes it more annoying.

Moore's PC

[nick_davison]

Roughly butchering Moore's law:

10 years / 18 months ~= 6.666
2^6.666~=60

So, as a rough rule of thumb, expect things to be about 50-60 times as powerful as they are today:

Given my 2GHz, 1Gb ram, 128mb video ram, 100Gb hard drive system today, a kind of typical PC, I should be running, by then:

120 GHz, 60 Gb ram, 7.5Gb video ram and a 6 terrabyte hard drive.

However, the following will also be true:

1) Windows 2013 will still be as slow as hell (probably clogging that fast 120 GHz processor with all of the things it securely prevents me from doing).

2) My wife will have finally killed me for all the money I've spent, especially as I swore that last year's 80Ghz processor would see me through for a couple of years.

3) According to Nick's newly coined law - every eighteen months my PC will give off roughly double the heat energy - I have just single handedly caused the ice caps to melt.

Re:Moore's PC

[Allen Varney]

expect things to be about 50-60 times as powerful as they are today.

Actually storage capacities are doubling each year, not each 18 months, and have been doubling annually since about 1989. So in 10 years your 100G hard drive will be 100 terabytes. Unfortunately, access speeds are only improving by about 10%/year, so searching for a file on your 100T drive will take about a week....

Re:i expect perfection

[Lord_Dweomer]

" i expect everything work right,"

Even spellcheck?

Re:What's a computer?

[Lord_Dweomer]

" In addition to the tablet, you will have a variety of other everyday objects that are also in contact with the box, each reporting your use, gestures, speech, or what have you to the main box."

And this will all be reported back to the government....err.....I mean Microsoft....err...Microsoft = Government?

Screw it, in 10 years my computer will be made out of tin-foil.

You got more than what you asked for...

[Transcendent]

Today I use an Athlon XP 2400...

Bet you didn't think you'd get a space heater out of your computer!

Re:512k?

[Anonymous Coward]

You uphold the geek nature of the site simply by arguing about it. Well done.

It's the year 2003...

[fwc]

...but where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars. I don't see any flying cars. Why?

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist)

two column format

[DoraLives]

it goes against every other menu known to man (or at least me).

Hmm. Don't spend much time in restaurants, do we?

Re:In my experience and my (not so humble) opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, be sure to tell them to put all their money into the stock of a small company named "Microsoft" in the early 1980's, and that around 1999 you'll be expecting a nice check in the mail.

Are you kidding?? I'd have them take Governor Arnold back with them to kill Bill Gates!