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Subject: 
Re: Y2K bug in action
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.geek
Date: 
Thu, 6 Jan 2000 01:53:47 GMT
Viewed: 
1413 times
  
On Wed, 5 Jan 2000 05:31:55 GMT, "Will Middelaer"
<betamale@REMOVEyahoo.com> wrote:

> I just finished reading William Gibson's "All Tomorrow's Parties" (Which,
> BTW,is a pretty good book, albeit with a weak ending.).

> In the book, one of the funny things that he postulates is that in the future,
> there pretty much will not be any new software, just a continual patching and
> re-patching of existing code to suit circumstances.  As hardware gets faster
> and faster, there is no need to optimize code, only to provide more
> functionality, even if it means bloatware.

aka "reality", as it's known outside the publishing world.

> I suppose one of the rare exceptions to this would be entertainment software
> that has to try to wring as much performance out of each clock cycle that it
> can, so that it doesn't limit its market to just Johnny's Rocket PC with the
> 12GHz Octium IV processor.

I doubt that that will continue for more than a few decades.

There's just so much you can do with a computer - immersive VR with
more objects than you can handle is probably the limit. And that's not
far off in terms of computer power, it's just the I/O devices that
haven't caught up yet.

I am seeing the wealthier of the ultimate geeks around me already
buying VR glasses for Christmas, though (going around $2500 for the
newest Sony model - 30" virtual screen at 1600*1200, IIRC), and I
expect in 5 years from now they'll be wuite feasible. The tech is
driven by large TFT laptop screens, for the most part, and enhancing
fast.

Jasper



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Y2K bug in action
 
(...) I just finished reading William Gibson's "All Tomorrow's Parties" (Which, BTW,is a pretty good book, albeit with a weak ending.). In the book, one of the funny things that he postulates is that in the future, there pretty much will not be any (...) (27 years ago, 5-Jan-00, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)

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