Squeak Xbox port
Stephen Pair
stephen at pairhome.net
Thu Apr 10 13:07:44 UTC 2003
Cees de Groot wrote:
>On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:39, Chris Reuter wrote:
>
>
>>Personally, I find this whole goal sort of perplexing. PVRs and game
>>consoles are appliances. Yes, they have computers in them, but (most)
>>people buy them because they want to record TV shows or play video
>>games. If they want to compute, they get computers.
>>
[snip]
>Slowly, without anyone noticing, game consoles *will* creep up into the
>market that is currently filled by PC's, at least as far as home use is
>concerned.
>
Probably true, but I think you might be overlooking the possibility that
PCs evolve in into things which are every bit as easy to use as game
consoles...when that happens, and when free stuff is plentiful, Joe A.
User will be compelled to switch for simple economic reasons.
>For 90% of the home users out
>there, the PC is the wrong idea, and a 'computing appliance' is the
>right idea.
>
>
Sure...but I think that appliance needs to have Dynapad capabilities.
;) I don't think it's written anywhere that a PC has to be so
non-intuitive and hard for Joe A. User to use.
>So, I find it *extremely* worrying that these things are closed
>platforms. And *extremely* worrying that people who sell mod chips in
>the USA are indeed being fined and jailed.
>
It is worrying, but the legal aspects will eventually shake themselves
out in a compromise that takes all concerns into account. But it might
be painful getting there.
>Because I predict that in
>5-10 years, PC's are things for hobbyists, and game consoles will
>dominate home use (these, and other specialized appliances - I believe
>very much in the 'bluetooth' model where lots of relatively specialized
>appliances all connect together, rather than to the 'Nokia 9210' model
>which is a one-thing-does-all-badly appliance).
>
>
I doubt that (but maybe your definition of a PC is more narrow than
mine)...first, many people are going to need PCs for work. Second,
children love computers, and not just for their superficial uses like
you describe...I doubt you'll be able take general purpose computers
away from them. I believe in 5-10 years, you're going to have lot's of
specialized appliances and computers (and btw, most of them will be open
and programmable)...probably at least one computer for each person in
the household and a server. Matter of fact, that's the situation right
now with many of the people I know.
Take the PVR for example, it's a specialized device and in many cases
they are closed, or semi-closed. But, I think things are definitely
trending towards more openness. PCs are starting to get the features of
PVRs, and there are lot's of open source efforts underway to build that
functionality. One day, some company is going to figure out that they
can sell a box with this open/free software pre-installed, do it for a
fraction of the cost of more closed systems, and make a bundle of money
because everyone's going to want it because there are tons of little
free (or really cheap) features available for it right off the internet
that people are writing for it.
- Stephen
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