Well, not meaning to be a dick in return, but it would scratch every itch that would lead one to want a desktop over a laptop in the first place, and it doesn't matter if the need for a luggable has been eroded if *I'm* still one of the bits of debris clinging tenaciously to the rock face of need. And I'm not whining about their being unavailable. I'm going to build it. For me. Not to market.
It's never going to sit on a lap, always on a desk. It's never going to run on batteries. It's going to have a standard keyboard and mouse and a full size monitor that can be positioned anywhere I like it independant of the keyboard. It's going to move far more often than a desktop, but never ever have to be lugged around all day in a bookbag or backpack so it doesn't *have* to be particularly small or light. I can carry an acoustic guitar in a hard case around quite nicely for instance.
The Shuttle comes closer than a laptop, but is actually intended to be as *small* as possible, not as convenietly transportable as possible. It's a subtle difference but a real one. The cube shape contains the most interior volume in the least exterior sheet metal.
For transporting it's the monitor and keyboard that determine your form, just as in the laptop, and just as in the laptop this means building spread out and flat. Since were dealing with a fair amount of area this way you can use a standard ATX board and still have tons of space left over on one side for drives and such.
A slimline case lets you fold your full size monitor on one side of it, your full size keyboard on the other, tuck all your wiring into a cubby, grab the handle on top and go. Or the monitor could simply be built into the case. A desktop like this was marketed some years ago.
Call it the attache case computer if you like, a time honored form factor for easy carrying.
Maybe you wouldn't define this as a luggable in the sense that the Osborne was, but it's close enough for me. It lugs. My full size tower and 19" CRT don't.
This library also contains every possible variation of Shakespeare and the card catalog only identifies individual volumes. It does not know which is the "correct" Shakespeare, as it treats all volumes as works of equal *merit,* even those composed entirely at random.
A compression algorithm does not work because each volume has to be *read* to evaluate the merit of its content even though each one may well be clearly labeled and cataloged.
You see an apparent flaw because a *particular* volume that you know as "Shakespeare" has already been read, been determined to have meaning and been determined to be the "definitive" version. Neither the library nor the librarian have this concept as a precursor.
Thus the smallest possible catalog is the library of books itself.
I never had an Osborne, although I knew a few people who did. I ended up with the Compaq clone and you could have seen me using it (as I've posted before, for anybody keeping score) to run the core functions of my business until 1999.
I loved that old 4mhz battle ax, and only retired it because purely mechanical bits that I couldn't find replacements for began to wear out.
I'd beg to differ somewhat on the Toshiba comment. Sometimes a luggable really is the proper portable solution because sometimes you don't want a laptop or "desktop replacement."
You want a desktop that's easy to take with you.
And now, for the first time, with new low power, low heat cpu's and integrated chipsets on *desktop* motherboards a quarter the size that Osborne was able to make them, and loverly full size, flat panel, LCD screens, a true transportable, *NOT* a laptop, is truly possible to make.
I intend to make one.
I'd name it in honor of Adam Osborne, only I can't name it Osborne, of course, and I can't name it Adam, for, ummmmm, obvious reasons.
I know, I'll use a TLA for (A)dam (O)sborne (L)uggable.
I would much prefer that a course in computer security be aligned with a university and good general engineering practice and strictly eschew alignment with any company of any kind.
Don't they have a *professor* qualified to teach such a course, and if not, why would anyone go there?
Maybe I'm just being a *cynical* old fuddy duddy, but I smell payol. . . er, a donation. Ah yes, there it is at the end of the article. Go figure.
I also strongly suspect that day one will *not* feature a lecture on the benefits of UNIX, how to uninstall Outlook Express or the security features built into Sun Java.
Which is precisely the reason an institute of higher learning should shy away from such blatant association with a particular company who has a vested interest in the field.
What's going to be next, the Christian Science Monitor Chair of Internal Medicine or Powerbar Chair of Exercise Physiology?
As the article itself notes some of these genres aren't dead, they're *free.* This is quite a different statement. I play asteroids and tetris on a regular basis, I simply didn't have to pay fifty bucks for them.
Saying these genres are dead is like saying computer solitaire is dead, even though it takes up more user gaming time than everything else put together, because it *comes with* virtually every graphical enviroment in the universe.
Or like saying the automobile is dead on the day that everyone on the planet is issued one that will last forever.
These genres aren't dead, they're bloody ubiquitous.
It's just that EA and Sierra can't soak us repeatedly for them anymore.
As for "virtual reality" being dead ( a concept inherently ridiculous in light of the sales of The Sims), in the manner they mean, it isn't dead. It's an idea ahead of the technology's ablility to deliver it and thus is merely in stasis until our hardware catches up with our imagination.
Trust me, when they figure out how make a pair glasses and gloves for a hundred bucks that'll give you your own virtual Sarah Michelle Gellar they won't be able to make 'em fast enough.
"When you get to the point where the postman. bankers and marketing droids notice you suck and lie about it, man, it's over."
It's worse than that. My 70 year old *mom* has noticed it, and she's willing to believe we were put here by a confederation of space aliens and fairies.
As it happens everything you've mentioned about the development of the hammer is true, and evolution, not revolution.
The revolution came when someone make a blade on one side of the hammer and turned it into an ax.
Note that with the ax revolution the hammer did not disappear because the hammer was still a superiour tool for busting heads.
Revolution only ends when no one asks "How can I do this better," AND there happens to actually be a better way to do it
You may, for instance, think " how can I drive nails better" and invent the pneumatic nail gun, which, as it turns out, has nothing to do with *hammers.*
Mark my words, the interface as we know it will continue to evolve, as did the hammer, but when you sit down at a GUI 20 years from now, you'll recognize it.
To each his own. I still remember thinking how silly and confusing it was the first time I fired it up. And I still tend to feel that way after years of using it. Whereas Windows 3 always seemed far more intuitive to me. In fact, beyond intuitive and all the way to bloody obvious.
Whereas there's nothing particularly intuitive about looking at the lower left corner in a society that starts reading at the *upper* left corner and pressing a "start" button to. ..shutdown.
Win95 isn't a racehorse, lith, lean and single purpose. It's a fake TV, dumb and at the same time more complicated and confusing.
Hammers haven't changed much since the days of Thor, although they've evolved a bit.
They still bust heads better than just about anything. Lack of revolution just might be a *good* thing.
The great thing about computers though, especially one running Linux, is that it's fairly easy ( in the comparitive sense) for anybody who has a better idea to impliment it.
Have you thought up the new, revolutionary interface that will sweep everything else away before it?
Neither have I, so that's ok. Neither has anybody else.
There a few competing graphical interfaces, and a few command line interfaces, that pretty much seem to cover the bases of people's preferences, and they all approach optimum to one degree or another and direct mind control is still science fiction.
Get used to it. It's going to be like this for a while.
Your monitor is not your computer. It is merely the device to which it outputs video. In a similar manner what you look at when you think of watching TV is only the output device for the television signal.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of truely seperating the functions of a TV and using a seperate output device for display. Many flat panel and projection units do this already.
If you already *own* a high quality output display device and don't inherently need another why *pay* for another when all you need is a tuner? Not to mention paying, in various ways, for the space it takes up.
Throw in the fact that computers are now the technology of choice for manipulating video and you cut out another "middleman."
This is not to say that there are not perfectly good reasons for owning multiple devices, just to say that it's the owning of multiple devices that is begining to be the stance that demands some sort of extra justification. Not the other way around.
I'm already on record here as taking the position that having your computer be your refrigerator or toaster is just plain doofy, but your computer being your television, especially in an age where every day your television more and more becomes a computer (even with a hard drive)seems pretty reasonable.
Seperating the idea that your video display device is part of the *device itself* seems even more reasonable.
Consider it as the hardware version of Object Oriented, only with, ummmmmmmmm, objects.
No, it isn't. Particularly for systems intended for basic use, such as, say, running vi and mutt, with the odd Nethack session thrown in, or even Win98 with basic productivity software.
VIA chips are also a viable solution for these systems, and my next desktop system, literally, I'm going to be building it directly into the desktop itself, will probably rely on one of these low heat, low power consumption, chips.
First figure out how much "power" you need, then get the chip that requires the least power for the least money. It's both the proper financial *and* engineering solution.
Great Kings are often supplanted by the least of mortals when the tide of fashion removes their followers.
GPL and its lineal descendents are the only true racing sims yet produced. There you are correct. But it is the online community that makes a sufficient number of people still interested in playing it that keeps it going.
If it weren't for that there would just be a few of us dedicated "wingnuts" playing it alone in our mother's basements.
Where I'm currently dedicating the next year to solo practice to bring my monster rank down to at least the single digits. All life is wasted in one way or another. I intend to enjoy wasting mine.
I don't think there's any doubt that computers have raised the single player game to levels previously unimaginable.
We've gone from puzzle games, crosswords, solitaire and such to fully immersive interactive worlds like Grim Fandango and IL2.
I, for one, think that there's too *much* emphisis on multiplayer these days, to the extent that single player is often totally ignored.
However, all that being said, whether you *think* you are acting socially or not, a multiplayer game of Counter-Strike is an entirely different, ummmm, ball game, just because you *know* those are actually other people out there.
And while I may spend many, many, *many* more hours driving Grand Prix Legends in solo mode it's the online racing against real human beings that gives the game the spice that has allowed it to remain the king of Driving Sims for over 4 years, in a world where a game more than one year old is considered dead.
I'm a geek and a Buddhist. I deeply revere hours spent in solitary concentration and contemplation, even in my recreational hours, but I am *not* socially averse or inept either.
If you think Thoreau was a hermit than if you read Walden for the first time you'll be likely to proclaim him, as did one Amazon reviewer, a "fraud." Thoreau posed an experiment in reducing human living to its bare essentials. He considered social interactions to be one of the things that man cannot truly live *entirely* without and remain a man.
He strove to find the right *balance* between solitude and social interaction.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, not meaning to be a dick in return, but it would scratch every itch that would lead one to want a desktop over a laptop in the first place, and it doesn't matter if the need for a luggable has been eroded if *I'm* still one of the bits of debris clinging tenaciously to the rock face of need. And I'm not whining about their being unavailable. I'm going to build it. For me. Not to market.
It's never going to sit on a lap, always on a desk. It's never going to run on batteries. It's going to have a standard keyboard and mouse and a full size monitor that can be positioned anywhere I like it independant of the keyboard. It's going to move far more often than a desktop, but never ever have to be lugged around all day in a bookbag or backpack so it doesn't *have* to be particularly small or light. I can carry an acoustic guitar in a hard case around quite nicely for instance.
The Shuttle comes closer than a laptop, but is actually intended to be as *small* as possible, not as convenietly transportable as possible. It's a subtle difference but a real one. The cube shape contains the most interior volume in the least exterior sheet metal.
For transporting it's the monitor and keyboard that determine your form, just as in the laptop, and just as in the laptop this means building spread out and flat. Since were dealing with a fair amount of area this way you can use a standard ATX board and still have tons of space left over on one side for drives and such.
A slimline case lets you fold your full size monitor on one side of it, your full size keyboard on the other, tuck all your wiring into a cubby, grab the handle on top and go. Or the monitor could simply be built into the case. A desktop like this was marketed some years ago.
Call it the attache case computer if you like, a time honored form factor for easy carrying.
Maybe you wouldn't define this as a luggable in the sense that the Osborne was, but it's close enough for me. It lugs. My full size tower and 19" CRT don't.
KFG
This library also contains every possible variation of Shakespeare and the card catalog only identifies individual volumes. It does not know which is the "correct" Shakespeare, as it treats all volumes as works of equal *merit,* even those composed entirely at random.
A compression algorithm does not work because each volume has to be *read* to evaluate the merit of its content even though each one may well be clearly labeled and cataloged.
You see an apparent flaw because a *particular* volume that you know as "Shakespeare" has already been read, been determined to have meaning and been determined to be the "definitive" version. Neither the library nor the librarian have this concept as a precursor.
Thus the smallest possible catalog is the library of books itself.
KFG
What on earth else would I use? :)
And you can be certain I wasn't running Windows, or any *other* GUI on a 4mhz green screen machine.
KFG
I don't suppose he wore bells on his feet and whacked his computer repeatedly with a stick while all this was going on, did he?
Maybe he was just in the throes of some bizzare Celtic Coder rite of spring or something.
KFG
I never had an Osborne, although I knew a few people who did. I ended up with the Compaq clone and you could have seen me using it (as I've posted before, for anybody keeping score) to run the core functions of my business until 1999.
I loved that old 4mhz battle ax, and only retired it because purely mechanical bits that I couldn't find replacements for began to wear out.
I'd beg to differ somewhat on the Toshiba comment. Sometimes a luggable really is the proper portable solution because sometimes you don't want a laptop or "desktop replacement."
You want a desktop that's easy to take with you.
And now, for the first time, with new low power, low heat cpu's and integrated chipsets on *desktop* motherboards a quarter the size that Osborne was able to make them, and loverly full size, flat panel, LCD screens, a true transportable, *NOT* a laptop, is truly possible to make.
I intend to make one.
I'd name it in honor of Adam Osborne, only I can't name it Osborne, of course, and I can't name it Adam, for, ummmmm, obvious reasons.
I know, I'll use a TLA for (A)dam (O)sborne (L)uggable.
Yeah, that'll work.
KFG
I would much prefer that a course in computer security be aligned with a university and good general engineering practice and strictly eschew alignment with any company of any kind.
Don't they have a *professor* qualified to teach such a course, and if not, why would anyone go there?
Maybe I'm just being a *cynical* old fuddy duddy, but I smell payol. . . er, a donation. Ah yes, there it is at the end of the article. Go figure.
I also strongly suspect that day one will *not* feature a lecture on the benefits of UNIX, how to uninstall Outlook Express or the security features built into Sun Java.
Which is precisely the reason an institute of higher learning should shy away from such blatant association with a particular company who has a vested interest in the field.
What's going to be next, the Christian Science Monitor Chair of Internal Medicine or Powerbar Chair of Exercise Physiology?
KFG
"Could someone translate that to English for us?"
:)
You mean *from* English poetry into American prose, right?
I can see it now:
Yo! What's wit dis damn spot?
KFG
As the article itself notes some of these genres aren't dead, they're *free.* This is quite a different statement. I play asteroids and tetris on a regular basis, I simply didn't have to pay fifty bucks for them.
Saying these genres are dead is like saying computer solitaire is dead, even though it takes up more user gaming time than everything else put together, because it *comes with* virtually every graphical enviroment in the universe.
Or like saying the automobile is dead on the day that everyone on the planet is issued one that will last forever.
These genres aren't dead, they're bloody ubiquitous.
It's just that EA and Sierra can't soak us repeatedly for them anymore.
As for "virtual reality" being dead ( a concept inherently ridiculous in light of the sales of The Sims), in the manner they mean, it isn't dead. It's an idea ahead of the technology's ablility to deliver it and thus is merely in stasis until our hardware catches up with our imagination.
Trust me, when they figure out how make a pair glasses and gloves for a hundred bucks that'll give you your own virtual Sarah Michelle Gellar they won't be able to make 'em fast enough.
KFG
The only proof I have is that the aliens and fairies told me.
KFG
Hmmmm, I have a cousin named Dave who's a nurse, but if you were he you wouldn't have made that circucision crack.
My mom rather rather likes KDE.
Oh, and of course we didn't come from space aliens and fairies. If you believe so you are deluded. The mice made us.
KFG
"When you get to the point where the postman. bankers and marketing droids notice you suck and lie about it, man, it's over."
It's worse than that. My 70 year old *mom* has noticed it, and she's willing to believe we were put here by a confederation of space aliens and fairies.
KFG
As it happens everything you've mentioned about the development of the hammer is true, and evolution, not revolution.
The revolution came when someone make a blade on one side of the hammer and turned it into an ax.
Note that with the ax revolution the hammer did not disappear because the hammer was still a superiour tool for busting heads.
Revolution only ends when no one asks "How can I do this better," AND there happens to actually be a better way to do it
You may, for instance, think " how can I drive nails better" and invent the pneumatic nail gun, which, as it turns out, has nothing to do with *hammers.*
Mark my words, the interface as we know it will continue to evolve, as did the hammer, but when you sit down at a GUI 20 years from now, you'll recognize it.
KFG
To each his own. I still remember thinking how silly and confusing it was the first time I fired it up. And I still tend to feel that way after years of using it. Whereas Windows 3 always seemed far more intuitive to me. In fact, beyond intuitive and all the way to bloody obvious.
.shutdown.
Whereas there's nothing particularly intuitive about looking at the lower left corner in a society that starts reading at the *upper* left corner and pressing a "start" button to. .
Win95 isn't a racehorse, lith, lean and single purpose. It's a fake TV, dumb and at the same time more complicated and confusing.
IMHO of course.
KFG
Hammers haven't changed much since the days of Thor, although they've evolved a bit.
They still bust heads better than just about anything. Lack of revolution just might be a *good* thing.
The great thing about computers though, especially one running Linux, is that it's fairly easy ( in the comparitive sense) for anybody who has a better idea to impliment it.
Have you thought up the new, revolutionary interface that will sweep everything else away before it?
Neither have I, so that's ok. Neither has anybody else.
There a few competing graphical interfaces, and a few command line interfaces, that pretty much seem to cover the bases of people's preferences, and they all approach optimum to one degree or another and direct mind control is still science fiction.
Get used to it. It's going to be like this for a while.
KFG
Your monitor is not your computer. It is merely the device to which it outputs video. In a similar manner what you look at when you think of watching TV is only the output device for the television signal.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of truely seperating the functions of a TV and using a seperate output device for display. Many flat panel and projection units do this already.
If you already *own* a high quality output display device and don't inherently need another why *pay* for another when all you need is a tuner? Not to mention paying, in various ways, for the space it takes up.
Throw in the fact that computers are now the technology of choice for manipulating video and you cut out another "middleman."
This is not to say that there are not perfectly good reasons for owning multiple devices, just to say that it's the owning of multiple devices that is begining to be the stance that demands some sort of extra justification. Not the other way around.
I'm already on record here as taking the position that having your computer be your refrigerator or toaster is just plain doofy, but your computer being your television, especially in an age where every day your television more and more becomes a computer (even with a hard drive)seems pretty reasonable.
Seperating the idea that your video display device is part of the *device itself* seems even more reasonable.
Consider it as the hardware version of Object Oriented, only with, ummmmmmmmm, objects.
KFG
I never said I *approved* of democracy.
KFG
Democracy.
KFG
In the words of Pete Seeger:
"Support our boys in Vietnam. Send them home."
KFG
they're also imposing restrictions on the transportation of model rocket engines.
It just doesn't seem fair.
KFG
In an interview says, "Man, you just can't trust anybody these days. Everyone's a crook. I feel like I've been robbed."
Police say an arrest has already been made, of the purchaser for possession of burglary tools, when he attempted to file a complaint.
Film, well, you know when.
It's times like these when I fully understand the maxim of W.C. Fields, "A fool and his money were lucky to get together in the first place."
To which he added, "Never smarten up a chump."
KFG
No, I was not equating Microsoft to God.
:)
I was equating Microsoft to an imaginary friend.
KFG
No, it isn't. Particularly for systems intended for basic use, such as, say, running vi and mutt, with the odd Nethack session thrown in, or even Win98 with basic productivity software.
VIA chips are also a viable solution for these systems, and my next desktop system, literally, I'm going to be building it directly into the desktop itself, will probably rely on one of these low heat, low power consumption, chips.
First figure out how much "power" you need, then get the chip that requires the least power for the least money. It's both the proper financial *and* engineering solution.
KFG
Great Kings are often supplanted by the least of mortals when the tide of fashion removes their followers.
GPL and its lineal descendents are the only true racing sims yet produced. There you are correct. But it is the online community that makes a sufficient number of people still interested in playing it that keeps it going.
If it weren't for that there would just be a few of us dedicated "wingnuts" playing it alone in our mother's basements.
Where I'm currently dedicating the next year to solo practice to bring my monster rank down to at least the single digits. All life is wasted in one way or another. I intend to enjoy wasting mine.
KFG
And 20 years ago it was revolutionary to "componantize" the home computer.
"There is nothing that hasn't been thought of. The trick is to think of it again." - Goethe
KFG
I don't think there's any doubt that computers have raised the single player game to levels previously unimaginable.
We've gone from puzzle games, crosswords, solitaire and such to fully immersive interactive worlds like Grim Fandango and IL2.
I, for one, think that there's too *much* emphisis on multiplayer these days, to the extent that single player is often totally ignored.
However, all that being said, whether you *think* you are acting socially or not, a multiplayer game of Counter-Strike is an entirely different, ummmm, ball game, just because you *know* those are actually other people out there.
And while I may spend many, many, *many* more hours driving Grand Prix Legends in solo mode it's the online racing against real human beings that gives the game the spice that has allowed it to remain the king of Driving Sims for over 4 years, in a world where a game more than one year old is considered dead.
I'm a geek and a Buddhist. I deeply revere hours spent in solitary concentration and contemplation, even in my recreational hours, but I am *not* socially averse or inept either.
If you think Thoreau was a hermit than if you read Walden for the first time you'll be likely to proclaim him, as did one Amazon reviewer, a "fraud." Thoreau posed an experiment in reducing human living to its bare essentials. He considered social interactions to be one of the things that man cannot truly live *entirely* without and remain a man.
He strove to find the right *balance* between solitude and social interaction.
So should you - and so should game designers.
KFG