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PC Designer Says PC "Going the Way of the Vacuum Tube"

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pack-it-on-the-zeppelin dept.

jbrodkin writes "One of the original engineers of IBM's first PC says PCs are 'going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.' With the 30th anniversary of the IBM 5150 (running MS-DOS) coming this week, IBM CTO Mark Dean argues that the post-PC world is very much upon us, perhaps not surprising given that IBM sold its PC business in 2005. Microsoft, of course, weighed in as well, saying the PC era is nowhere near over. But perhaps in the future we will consider a personal computer anything a person does computing on — whether that be laptop, tablet, smartphone, or something that hasn't even been invented yet."

5 of 685 comments (clear)

  1. Re:supposedly obsolete tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Guitar amps and bass amplifiers, and preamps for vocals, for their nice distortion.

  2. Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    But perhaps in the future we will consider a personal computer anything a person does computing on — whether that be laptop, tablet, smartphone, or something that hasn't even been invented yet.

    Like macs? Please for the love of gods, can we please refer to them as PCs? They are fracking personal computers!

  3. Dumbest Prediction Ever? by shellster_dude · · Score: 4, Informative

    The "post PC" age is not upon us. Small computers and cellphones largely do what PC's used to, but they don't even come close to being capable of handling high-end gaming, graphic editing, movie editing, sound editing, and heavy mathematical computation. Small computers also aren't particularly convenient for software development in general. Unless the landscape radically shifts those items aren't going away anytime soon.

    Someone is just trying to get a little press buzz and desparately hoping the world takes notice of them.

  4. Re:Affordable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Okay, seriously? You mean to tell me you can't fathom people spending gobs of cash on some bad-ass box when they're spending 4-500 on things the size of our hands!? Please...

    PCs aren't going anywhere and the idiot who made the original comment about this is some moron who has his head in the cloud a bit too much.

  5. Re:supposedly obsolete tech by Phreakiture · · Score: 4, Informative

    Your microwave oven will have a cavity magnetron in it, which is a vacuum tube.

    Also, if you have an older TV, CRTs are vacuum tubes.

    --
    www.wavefront-av.com