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Originally Posted by Speedyer
I dunno, obviously the internet is a big part of what a computer is used for these days, but I don't see consoles being any real threat to PC's at all. Personally I don't like the idea of being without the flexibility of a PC. Granted, I'd say my folks (who are entering their early 50's), use the computer for maybe two things for the most part. Surf the internet, and check mail but even they want the ability to do all the things you say they don't need even if they'll never do anything. So no, I don't see people going for a simpler platform with limited capabilities when they can have it all.
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I'm not really setting up an either-or proposition or saying that the OS based computer will go away. What I'm saying is that the "Personal Computer" PC (as opposed to the relative misnomer of a personal computer running a Microsoft OS) is going to see a decline in popularity for casual users, in contrast to the late nineties when men at barbecues admired each others PC's in a car-like suburban pissing match to see who had the most RAM and whose monitor was the biggest.
The computer with the OS won't go anywhere, mostly because of businesses but also because of users such as yourself, that like it. But, the majority of people who "caved in" and bought computers over the last ten years don't like them the way you do. They want them for one or two specific things (printing pictures of the grand kids, "doing email", looking at websites, playing video games etc). It happens that a lot of what I'll call "power users" - a term for non-programmers/IT people that are savvy - also like gaming. I'm guessing that you and pram fit into this category (though I have no way of knowing if you're IT/programmer, so forgive the presumption). Power users will continue to buy OS based computers for personal use because of the flexibility that you mention. But other people, not so much. If they can pay a few hundred bucks for a console that connects to the internet and a few hundred bucks for an "email machine", why pay more for a computer that you don't understand and that can get something called "viruses" and cause you problems?
You're seeing this already. I know people who have not bothered purchasing computers and opt instead to buy phones with internet functionality. I know people who have bought Nintendo Wii because they like the gaming and it gives them internet/email access. This is already a reality. It won't drive the OS computer out of business, but it
will make Microsoft and other OS providers less interested in producing a monolithic operating system that purports to be powerful and flexible while at the same time allowing computer illiterate individuals to access everything with a point and click and no maintenance (i.e. their excessive wizards and things of this nature will probably go away).
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Sounds interesting, but how does it work exactly? I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around that idea to be honest. I mean I get it more or less, but I don't see how it would work.
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I'm going to try to explain myself without launching into gobbledygook, which isn't easy since I've spent my spare time in the last month making a website that evaluates database platforms targeted to programmers and DBA's....
An OS has certain "basic" functions that it simply must do. These include managing internal functions (processor, memory, disk swapping), divvying up time between running programs, "talking" to hardware connected to the machine externally or internally, loading itself into memory, etc. The other tasks that are not strictly required (but for all intents and purposes are commercially) are application management and user interaction.
A simple OS (think of what might be in early cell phones) is mainly centered around managing its hardware and the user interface is almost an afterthought about which no one much cares. On the other extreme, you have Microsoft's stuff. With each OS, not only has the user interface grown (to be expected with expanding memory capacities), but the
ratio of interface to hardware management has grown. With each OS, Microsoft is forcing the OS to act more and more like an application suite in addition to an OS. If not done well (and Microsoft does not do it well), this leads to a degradation in the actual performance of the OS (i.e. printing a document gets screwed up because the OS scheduler decides its time to check for RealPlayer updates and the OS starts thrashing).
Now imagine if we had separate modules for this kind of thing. That is, you had a computer that was solely dedicated to interacting with various devices and it provided some interface to a computer that was solely dedicated to interacting with you. The down side is that it might take slightly longer to print something or scan photos, but the upside is that you won't have hardware level stuff conflicting with the applications that you're trying to run. There's no reason for the OS to be pinging the print spooler while you're playing some first person shooter game. And, where this wasn't feasible before, the increasing availability of distributed technologies and increasing standardization of networking protocols (things like CORBA) is making it possible.
What I'm talking about here is essentially taking a lot of this application level fluff out of the OS. This isn't a brand thing. I'm a techie through and through, but I'm a whore - I'll happily program away in .NET on XP or Vista if it pays well and likewise for NIX. Microsoft is getting on board with this idea and you can see it by virtue of them starting to offer pared down OS for companies to give employees and whatnot.