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The Most Incorrect Assumptions In Computing?
Miss Muis writes "After reading once again that Moore's Law will become obsolete, I amused myself thinking back to all the predictions, absolutes and impossibles in computing that have been surpassed with ease. In the late 80s I remember it being a well regarded popular 'fact' that 100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU. Not too many years later I remember much discussion about hard drives for personal computers being physically unable to go much higher than 1GB. Let's not forget "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" from the chairman of IBM in 1943, and of course 'Apple is dying...' (for the past 25 years). What are your favorite beliefs-turned-on-their-heads in the history of computing?"
640K is enough for anyone. (that one was easy)
This Internet thing is a fad.
No one will want to look at a man stretching his bottom wide open.
Trolling is a art,
I swear, this will be the last batch of RAM I'll ever need...
...I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them. --Prof Frink, Much Apu About Nothing
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Right...
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
My favorite bad product assumption is right in its title:
Microsoft Works
people will be thankful to have a anthropomorphic paperclip tell them what to do.
Flashing my dual 2.0 ghz g5 hasn't gotten me laid yet, I guess I was wrong !
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
Slashdot - News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters?
"Windows is the best OS because the most people use it."
~Philly
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corporation
Or my personal favorite...
"Trust me, this is way better than OS/2." - The dude at Computer City that sold me my copy of WIndows 95. Bastard.
....the assumption that people will pay $500 for hardware that will be obsolete in a year?
oh, wait....
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU
Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.
"Why would anyone want a computer in their home?" -- Ken Olson of DEC in late 1970's regarding personal computers.
or something to that effect.
"Whereas computers today weigh 1 ton and require 18,000 vaccum tubes, computers in the future will weigh only 1/2 ton and have under 1,000 vaccum tubes." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Demonstrate with a beer.
Upload it to the refrigerator.
Download it from the refrigerator.
Install it.
Uninstall it.
t
and given enough venture capital, an internet start up will be super profitable on the internet even though it has never made a profit, and doesn't have a sound business plan, and has a super inflated stock price.
But, it does have a great shiny mission statement:
"It's our responsibility to synergistically provide access to world-class sources as well as to assertively facilitate enterprise-wide opportunities" - Dilbert Mission Statment Generator
(Stock brokers in a flurry) BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY!
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
So now that Apple uses *BSD, is it dying twice as fast?
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Its not computers, but in the early 1900, or maybe late 1800, it was believed that the human brain couldnt process all the information necessary to travel over 35 mph. And if you did travel faster than that speed you would go insane. Its a good thing that we have cell phones now, so we can drive whit out abosorbing insane amounts of information from the road.
Taken from the Wired Article attributed above.
"Meanwhile, I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough..."
Hmm....looks like he said it atleast once. Flaimbait....check
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR MINDS?! THE PHONE LINES WILL BURN UP!
This space for rent.
Indeed. In 1982 I had a BBS running on an Apple ][+ with 2x 143K floppies. In '84 I bought a 10 MB hard drive for the BBS and thought "Holy moly.. I'll never fill this up.."
Trolling is a art,
I have a Mac friend who say his G5 is "faster than the Internet" becuase everytime he opens his browser he gets "a page not found messege" and has to hit the refresh button.
I keep on telling him that its just a bug and his computer isn't faster than his broadband connection. But, he doesn't beleive me.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
With all the porn on the internet, you'd think there would be a lot more blind men around.
But he definitely wrote (or at least took the "credit" for writing):
in "The Road Ahead".
-Peter
Umm, can I surmize that your 10mb harddrive was quickly filled with ascii fisting porn, based on the link you left in your sig?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
you're right! He even got his name into it! The whole thing is, after all, based on Al-Gore-ithms. [sound of a million /.'ers groaning]
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
"With Macrovision we will eliminate bootleg VHS copies once and for all!"
"With Laserlok we will eliminate software piracy once and for all!"
"With Cactus Datashield we will eliminate Audio CD ripping once and for all!"
for each $drm_product
for each $technology
"With {$drm_product} we will eliminate {$technology} piracy once and for all!"
end
end
Pardon me?
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
"Hi, I'm Al Gore, the inventor of the environment and first emperor of the moon." - Al Gore (futurama)
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Hell, when I was in the 9th grade we managed to fill up a 40 meg drive with porn GIF's downloaded at 2400 baud using bogus BBS accounts.
Hmm, that ought to be a law of some sort... like 'the availability of pornography will increase at a rate sufficient to match any advances in data storage and transfer technology.' Yeah, I like that. Scott's law on digital smut. Bound to hold true longer than Moore's Law.
With Mac OS X, I guess Apple and BSD can die together!
vi ~/.emacs
is fair and accurate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
"Now, except for the one knob on the 'scope under my desk, all my interfaces to the outside world ARE buttons."
Well with a MCSE you can get a job clicking icons.
http://saveie6.com/
And I'd be much happier giving my mother (despite three college degrees and quite a high IQ, Macs are too complex for her) a Linux box than a Windows box or Mac.
Reminds me of a Dilbert strip.
PHB: Make it simple enough so even my mother could us it.
Alice: It's already simple enough that a squirrel could use it. How much dumber is your mother?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Windows 1.0 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multitasker!"
Windows 3.0 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 3.1 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 3.11 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive 32bit multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 95 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 95OSR2 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 98 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 98SE - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows ME - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
NT 3.5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP1 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP3 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6A - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6ASRP - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
2K - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
XP - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
AS2k2 - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
Longhorn - "Yes! This new version is Trustworthy(tm)!"
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am