From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!zehntel!sytek!menlo70!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!FISCHER@RUTGERS
Newsgroups: net.works
Title: The next driving force in PC/WorkStation design, aesthetics?
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.5404
Posted: Thu Mar 17 15:02:28 1983
Received: Thu Mar 24 07:06:20 1983
From: Ron
What follows is only half serious. Please disconnect one side of your
brain before continuing to read. Thank you.
----------------
In the ocean of time there have been many "waves of the future." Not
the least of recent temporal distubances has been the microcomputer
craze. Like most wet waves, societal-sized changes often alter
character several times as they "come in," before crashing and
flattening.
The simplest thing to gauge the contortions of the "microcomputer
revolution" is with the varying shape and dweomer of its progeny.
Many forces have shaped the design of products during the
microcomputer craze. However, in the midst of this turmoil there has
been a clear direction, from the absolute practicality of the past, to
the coming frivolity of the near future.
In the beginning there were chips. And they were expensive. The
buyers had said, "Let there be a market!" and it was big. The chips
multiplied as they were lead from their former domain, that of the
hardware hacker, to a new and greater land of bilk and money, the
regions of the retail producer. And the chip sellers became
prosperous.
But now our tale of wonder takes an odd turn. Designers of systems
were previously limited by the price of the chips going into them.
But then VLSI technology became more accessable and refined. Where
once there were many simple chips, there now lay socketed a single
ungodly complicated chip. Said large chip is nimble enough to
tapdance in 7/4 6/8 time. Meanwhile, memory's density leapt spritely
higher and higher, but its cost became more and more subdued. When
the dust settled about the dancing and shrinking chips it was
discovered that their price no longer dominated products built with
them. Another cost had taken over: software.
Software began it's life on microcomputers with a solemn "Moo." In
the beginning, software was stupid. Operating systems were the
dumbest pieces of software, being prejudiced to the extreme and liable
to crash in a fit of rage at the user's slightest mistake. The
childhood of personal computer software was a troubled one. Retail
producers realized that it would take serious amounts of effort to get
software right, and as anyone knows: commercial effort means money,
great bags of money. At the moment we're in the era of "user
friendly" software, the cost of which is beginning to dominate
personal machines like workstations.
So were does the wave crash and flatten?
The trend looks to be toward paying attention to aesthetics. Soon
people won't touch a computer if it offends them. As well they
shouldn't. Unlike a puppy, computers are not cute when young, and
(given a choice) people won't stand for the software equivalent of an
"accident." No one wants to train a computer how to behave, and
worse, no one wants a computer to teach *them* how to behave!
Executives, who have always had an aversion to the keyboard (but for
the wrong reason), will be the first to exhibit these tendancies,
because they will be the first serious market of end users with a
choice of computer to buy. How many managers earning $50k per year
will purchase a giant, or worse stupid, box to put on their desk?
Making the box smart won't be terribly difficult; software's moving
that way already. Making the box dominate space less than its user
will be.
About the hardest thing to disguise in any computer is the display.
The design of almost every display box in history tells the tale of
trying to hide a CRT. Note that the Grid/Compass computer uses a
(currently slightly impractical) flourescent display. But when you
meet someone who owns a Grid/Compass you still notice their face
before noticing their computer.
The trend seems to be toward improvement based on aesthetics along the
same two tracks: software and hardware. Software has been the first
to move in that direction, it is easier to write and distribute
software than to tool up and produce new hardware. The newest
software uses metaphors that are pleasing, data as an object for
instance. When given a choice, and not limited to "the only package
that really does the job," people will use the "nicer" one. Their
judgement of niceness will be based on all the unquantifiables that
marketing people try to nail down. Aesthetics. Personal taste.
This brings one to imagine all sorts of personal computers and
workstations, designed for every taste and need in a consumer oriented
marketplace. The buyer of a "boom box" portable loud stereo system,
what would this person buy in a personal computer? The buyer of a
$5000+ home stereo system, what sort of computer would this person
have? The buyer of a Pathmark Supermarket generic (yellow) AM radio,
what would they buy? What sort of computer would a valley girl buy?
On we roll toward the Calvin Klein computer...
----------------
Please reconnect brain before continueing, or operating heavy
machinery (or software?).
Just thought another way of looking at things would be amusing.
Does anyone have any thoughts on what really drives the personal
computer market, and its coming offshoot the workstation market? Who
do manufacturers really listen to when designing new personal
computers (not at the VIC-20 level, at the Apple Lisa level)?
How quickly will upper level managers will get personal information
systems (WorkStations)?
What are the side effects of large masses of society having powerful
personal information systems? (this last one seems especially
interesting)
(ron)
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