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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?"
Various eye and head tracking mice exist (check out this page for alternative mouse devices). They are used extensively by the disabled community, particularly by people with mobility impairments. The reason they haven't caught on more in the mainstream is primarily that using your head or eyes to control a pointer is a lot less convenient than most people think. First off, your hands are actually more precise and dextrous, secondly, you have several fingers which allows for a variety of clicking and scrolling type motions. With a head mouse, you have to dwell the pointer for a period of time in order to click (sure, there are external switches you can use, but that defeats your purpose of not having to use your hands). Also, because eye movements are often instinctive and because we also use our eyes to identify and read content on the screen, it can be difficult to control the mouse and unwanted selections are frustatingly common without long practise. I think the mouse is here to stay in one form or another (until VR style gloves become common or hand motions in open air are detected by lasers).
It is the keyboard we are for more likely to find ourselves disposing of as voice recognition gets rapidly better and better. Of course, I highly doubt that we will actually get rid of it either as many people find that they think better with the keys than with their voice and because so many programs, including games, have learned to take such advantage of the tremendous variety of input the keyboard offers.
lysergically yours
http://www.research.att.com/projects/tts/demo.html
http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/
http://www.research.ibm.com/tts/coredemo.html
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
While I realize this was meant in a comedic fashion and also that Slashdot tends to be a Linux-focussed website, I would like to note that I use Windows XP Professional on one of my machines (other is FreeBSD). I have yet to see a BSOD that wasn't related to a totally broken third-party driver. Even FreeBSD and Linux come crashing down if you load buggy driver code. My Windows XP is pretty rock solid.
Beware, Nugget is watching... See?
It's probably bad hardware if it's not drivers. Try running memtest.
Never had any major problems out of my Win2K box. Only time I've had BSOD's is when hardware failed or a bad driver. I've had the same install for over a year now and it still runs fast as it did from day one. It acts as a website for three different devolpment sites, an FTP server, and hosts my VR terminal services server. Currently been up for 17 days 14 hours.
Make what you want of it.
The original appears to be "...television watches you", an obvious 1984 reference.
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
According to:
http://www.medterms.com/
The male gonad is the testicle (or testis), located behind the penis in a pouch of skin (the scrotum).
The female gonad, the ovary or "egg sac", is one of a pair of reproductive glands in women.
So I grabbed and compiled a copy of VICE, the Commodore 64 emulator. Then I grabbed an abandon-ware copy of SAM, the Software Automatic Mouth. Its text-to-speech was about equivalent to the modern program. Plus, it had the option to type things in phonetically, including syllable emphasis. And it added the SAY command to the C64 built-in BASIC. All this in less than 32K is just incredible.
To be fair, I have heard some of the more modern TTS programs, and they do a pretty good job. So do some of the newer voice recognition programs, especially the ones now used on automated phone systems.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
"Related to tech: telecommunications. fucking joke. With lots dark fiber out there, phone services should be a dirt cheap commindity.
Telecoms has become cheaper. Ignoring inflation, it's now cheaper to call the UK than it was for me to make local calls when I lived there 10 years ago. I think peak rate local calls with BT cost GBP0.03/min in about 1995 (it's higher if you adjust for inflation). I call the UK for about CAD$0.07/min (about GBP0.03 or slightly less). I think that is more representative of cheap telecoms than the disgusting prices the Baby Bells charge just to get a dial tone from a land line. That's an example of what happens when there isn't enough competition.
Old DOS devices, try \CON\CON , \AUX\AUX , \NUL\NUL , \CLOCK$\CLOCK$ , and \CONFIG$\CONFIG$ (or any combination thereof).
Here's proof (current as of when this VC was purchased: 2001) which I keep handy for disbelievers like you.
I don't know what kind of games you were buying, but in the 80s, I was paying 1.99-9.99GBP for Spectrum games (average was probably 4.95-5.95GBP for a long time). During the 90s, Amiga/ST games were typically 20-25. Now, most games are 35-50GBP.
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