- Sep 12, 2008
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I went cruizing through the computer section at the store today. The floppy drive has gone the way of the dinosaur on all systems. I was really annoyed that Mac dropped them from the Imac way back, and it is one of the reasons I didn't get one for a long time. But now no one has them at all. The floppy drive has gone the way of the button hook and the IBM card.
The evolution of the PC has been interesting to watch, and I have been around for almost all of it since my Brother in law bought his first apple II back in 1979. back then mass storage was his TRS cassette tape player, and he had to build his own RGB modulator so he could attach it to his Zenith TV. The first floppy drive cost him $450 ran 5 1/4 inch discs that really were floppy and coppied only to one side and cost $2 a piece.
At school they have examples of old tech, including an old IBM hard drive from the mid 70's. The think was a foot cubed and had 5 megs of storage. And it cost 500,000 pre Carter dollars. I have two thumb drives on my key chain that each store more than that, and cost me a total of $35.
Anyway, the march of progress has been cool. Some of it way cool, like the DVD.
I notice that HP is selling laptops that use gesture to control the machines, just like the IPhones do. As more and more devices go this way, (and I notice that the Mac is doing almost gesture computing on the new mac books, with a large trac pad etc) do you see the mouse surviving three years from now?
With the advent of wireless everywhere for very cheap, will people even be using DVD's in the future? Will we just transmit to each other's public folders?
You see any cool stuff that you think will take the world by storm? Can you guess the Next Big Thing?
What I would be interested in seeing would be the next step up in hot superconducting materials cheap enough that the railroads could use them. We could build superfast rail connections between city centers that would get you from point to point without going through Atlanta.
Any other thoughts?
The evolution of the PC has been interesting to watch, and I have been around for almost all of it since my Brother in law bought his first apple II back in 1979. back then mass storage was his TRS cassette tape player, and he had to build his own RGB modulator so he could attach it to his Zenith TV. The first floppy drive cost him $450 ran 5 1/4 inch discs that really were floppy and coppied only to one side and cost $2 a piece.
At school they have examples of old tech, including an old IBM hard drive from the mid 70's. The think was a foot cubed and had 5 megs of storage. And it cost 500,000 pre Carter dollars. I have two thumb drives on my key chain that each store more than that, and cost me a total of $35.
Anyway, the march of progress has been cool. Some of it way cool, like the DVD.
I notice that HP is selling laptops that use gesture to control the machines, just like the IPhones do. As more and more devices go this way, (and I notice that the Mac is doing almost gesture computing on the new mac books, with a large trac pad etc) do you see the mouse surviving three years from now?
With the advent of wireless everywhere for very cheap, will people even be using DVD's in the future? Will we just transmit to each other's public folders?
You see any cool stuff that you think will take the world by storm? Can you guess the Next Big Thing?
What I would be interested in seeing would be the next step up in hot superconducting materials cheap enough that the railroads could use them. We could build superfast rail connections between city centers that would get you from point to point without going through Atlanta.
Any other thoughts?
