R.I.P., Macintosh?

[jupiter8]

"Something like this failed miserably in the past THEREFORE it will never happen again." I am criticising this argument - I'm saying the situation is a poor analogy. Inductive argument is still logical argument and we all use it all the time.

Ok,how about this then "Steve Jobs strikes me as a fella that'd rather eat his own poop than go back on a decision he made years ago?".

Can't really say why but that's the impression i get. Maybe because of his past stubbornness/childishness,i don't know.

[kilon]

Bottom line is that I still dont understnad how you say that a pc replaced mainframes and microcomputers. And yes I did looked it up in wikipedia.

For me they never did replaced pc, because pcs entered homes , mainframes did not because of their size. Pcs actually competed with home computers. And yes they did replaced them.

Before PC's, a user would be sitting at a "dumb terminal" that had no processing power. The terminal could only accept input, send it to the mainframe, wait for the results, and then display them. The terminal did not do any processing of data itself.

Then the PC revolution occurred, thanks in part to things like spread sheet software. Suddenly the user could do all sorts of cool stuff locally, without requiring a massive mainframe system and associated people to maintain it.

So for the last 30 years or so we've been using PC's (Mac's, Amiga's etc.) to do some really cool stuff. Now, the CPU power looks like it is going to drift back towards the "cloud" which is kind of like mainframes in disguise. But instead of the "mainframe" being one huge computer / CPU it's lots and lots of little computers all hooked together via a network in the Google or Amazon data centres. For this to occur, we need a pretty decent bump in network speed so that movies and games can run in real time over the network, but it's well on it's way now.

Anyway, the end result of this shift back towards the data centre is effectively the same as before the PC revolution - the user ends up with a DUMB terminal that can only display information from the cloud, and this is what frightens some people ...

The iPad and devices in a similar class will rely more and more on "the cloud" (mainframe) to display data, and that in effect gives direct control to the corporations over what we can and cannot view e.g. Apple says "no, you can't have pr0n on your iPad" for example ... or you are not going to see that movie because it contains questionable content. Perhaps one day, it won't be the corporations controlling what we are allowed to see and do with devices we purchased and own, but an even more sinister organisation ... but I'll leave that discussion for HPC

Does that make more sense now?

Peace,
Andy.

Andy thanks for the lenghty explanation. So basically the main argument is that is going to be a slow down in the demand for processing power.

I think that is a fair argument. Afteral Nitendo Wii, based its whole success on the fact that it offered alot less power compared to other consoles but loads more of usability, like the ipad.

So I cannot disagree with this argument. Even we myusicians do not actually starve for an eight core as we did crave for a dual core. And I know that even in 3d graphics this also happens, of course there is a need for render farms but for basic 3d stuff a quad core is enough.

Question ....

What if Apple decides to implement multitouch for macs ? Will that mean that macs are dead ?

What if it turns its macbook to ipads but keep the processing power and reasonably priced ?

About the cloud thing. I have an issue with it, continuous internet connection.

Several recent surveys have proven that up to 80% of users are disatisfied with their ISPs. That the biggest obstacle for cloud computing, it requires internet , it requires relaible ISPs and at the moment this is far from happening.

I magine wanting to play my favourite 3d game, or just make some music , or process video and my adsl is down... boom... cant do! that could be highly frustrating.

[jupiter8]

Several recent surveys have proven that up to 80% of users are disatisfied with their ISPs. That the biggest obstacle for cloud computing, it requires internet , it requires relaible ISPs and at the moment this is far from happening.

I magine wanting to play my favourite 3d game, or just make some music , or process video and my adsl is down... boom... cant do! that could be highly frustrating.

That is the main obstacle. However here in Sweden at least that is pretty much a non issue in my experience. Everyone i know has an internet connection and several (including myself) has 3rd generation mobile connections and i hear few/no complaints about non available connections. When the 4th generation is available (Stockholm only for the moment) with 50 mBit/sec or so i suspect a revolution in mobile computing. With the explosion in laptops (they outsell stationary since a while) and smartphones,pads and whatnots it is likely the line connection is going the same way as "regular" phones did.

But then again i blew it on the PS3. I believed it could be a strong contender to the PC since all that many people do is play games and surf the internet. And since that is possible on the PS3 i saw it as a big threat to Microsoft. Why get a PC when all you want to do can be done on the PS3 and so far that hasn't really happened.

No one knows,it is more or less educated guesses but it is interesting times indeed. The big switch is a really interesting theory. But then again most/all "experts" missed the user generated content revolution. I remember one saying that Internet will be huge but you'd always have to pay for the "real" content such as Encyclopedia Brittannica or New York Times. Something like Wikipedia was completely unimaginable just a few years ago.

[bebop]

hell yes! Catholics are all the same boring bigots!

[kilon]

so you think the only place pcs are used is homes?

no i dont, but on the other hand as I said mainframes were pure business tools.

you've never seen a pc used in, say, a business? i dont believe that.

I agree, Dont believe it , I am actually using one at work, so...

did businesses use home computers?

no

oh wait, they must have used 'business computers'. which didnt use to be one system per person; they were micros or mainframes.

I agree

a home computer was just a personal computer anyway. the first ones in homes were aimed at businesses first and consumers second.

What PCs did diffirent were that they were customisable, a home computer was like a mac, made by asingle company with dedicated software. Actually you could safely say that a mac is nothing more than an Amiga clone, many things that amiga did to market itself as stylish , cool and elegant , yet powerful , useful and powerful have been used by Apple recently alot more than they did in the past.

what relevance does popularity have? videotape was 'popular'. it got replaced.

Everything, why something is popular in the first place, for a single reason, because it can fufill diffirent needs. Mainframes missed three important thing, portability , managebility and affordability.

once upon a time 100% of the computers in the world were mainframes or micros. so yeah, they were pretty popular.

mainframes were like a couple of waves , pcs was a huge tidal wave that wiped out anything in its pass.
I dont see what 100% has to do with popularity. Things here are pure numbers.

Will you compare thousnads with millions ?

how exactly can I be wrong if it has already happened. and it has. ive given you an example. now it up to you to prove that it hasnt happened, ever, anywhere. its not enough for you to say 'i dont acknowledge that it happened, and it didnt happen in the home so it didnt happen'

in businesses, and education, and research, and public utilities, and all sorts of places where they once (as recently as the 80s) relied heavily on mainframes or minicomputers serving dozens or hundreds of users remotely for their computing needs, they now rely on one-system-per-desk computers. pcs in other words. the pcs replaced the mainframes. i know this, i watched it happen, first-hand, in universities and research sites.

Any moment now you're going to deny that the portable MP3 player is on its way to replacing the full home stereo installation, yeah? Or that aeroplanes replaced ships for transatlantic travel. They're not exactly the same thing, are they? Maybe you think we still wrap food in greaseproof paper and not stick them on polystyrene wrapped in clingfilm. Maybe you think we have larders instead of freezers, and salt our food for long-term storage instead of canning it.

Actually I talked about user needs, not the actual products. I sepcifically said that to my previous post. If it fulfills the same need, then its a similar product.

An aeroplane transport thing as a ship, yes as entities they are very diffirent , but the needs they fullfil is exactly the same.

An ipad CANNOT , i repeat CANNOT , fulfill all the needs that a mac can.

For that argument to fly, you'd first have to prove that those needs never overlap, and then you have to prove that a person would never change their estimation of their needs.

[/quote]

Of course needs overalp, OF COURSE an ipad can do thing that a mac can, OF COURSE an ipad can replace to an extend a mac. But to what extend?

Already said it before, and I repeat once more, mac user who use only a fraction of macs abilities will be ideal converts for the ipad. Why waste their money on a mac in the first place ? But mac power users ... will not.

I have nothing against ipad , I am seriously thinking getting one for myself.

[jupiter8]

Before PC's, a user would be sitting at a "dumb terminal" that had no processing power. The terminal could only accept input, send it to the mainframe, wait for the results, and then display them. The terminal did not do any processing of data itself.

Then the PC revolution occurred, thanks in part to things like spread sheet software. Suddenly the user could do all sorts of cool stuff locally, without requiring a massive mainframe system and associated people to maintain it.

Not to mention you were in the hands of the people in white labcoats who decided if your idea was worthy enough of the precious mainframe time. That was a big part in the homecomputer revolution. Now you could decide for yourself what was worthy of computer time,not some boring stuffy old fella with dandruff and boring ugly smelly clothes who wouldn't recognize a great idea if it materialized out of his morning cereal screaming and slapped him in the face.

EDIT:That is amongst the biggest revolutions of mankind fully comparable to the agriculture and industrial revolution. Were living in a paradigm shift. It's so exciting i'm almost wetting myself thinking about it.

[kilon]

That is the main obstacle. However here in Sweden at least that is pretty much a non issue in my experience. Everyone i know has an internet connection and several (including myself) has 3rd generation mobile connections and i hear few/no complaints about non available connections. When the 4th generation is available (Stockholm only for the moment) with 50 mBit/sec or so i suspect a revolution in mobile computing. With the explosion in laptops (they outsell stationary since a while) and smartphones,pads and whatnots it is likely the line connection is going the same way as "regular" phones did.

But then again i blew it on the PS3. I believed it could be a strong contender to the PC since all that many people do is play games and surf the internet. And since that is possible on the PS3 i saw it as a big threat to Microsoft. Why get a PC when all you want to do can be done on the PS3 and so far that hasn't really happened.

No one knows,it is more or less educated guesses but it is interesting times indeed. The big switch is a really interesting theory. But then again most/all "experts" missed the user generated content revolution. I remember one saying that Internet will be huge but you'd always have to pay for the "real" content such as Encyclopedia Brittannica or New York Times. Something like Wikipedia was completely unimaginable just a few years ago.

Ahh Sweden, the ideal country.... ehhh... Greece here... yeah I think you get my point.

Alot of Crappy countries with Crappy conections out there. Unfortunately. And if I remember correctly that surevey came from UK, so one will have to include UK in the list of crappy countries with crappy connections.

But hey, I am not excluding anything , who knows one day, maybe be ISPs all over the world offer what is expected of them. Reliable connections, without having to move to Sweden. So cloud computing is certainly no sci fi.

[jupiter8]

Ahh Sweden, the ideal country.... ehhh... Greece here... yeah I think you get my point.

[jupiter8]

Speaking from an enviromental angle,keeping computers cold is starting to be a real issue. Google is looking to Sweden to setup a new huge computer cluster 'cause it so damn cold here all the time,cooling will sort itself out in a manner of speaking. Who knows,could be a future business for Iceland to take them out of the trouble they're in. "Come to Iceland,it's colder than a penguin chuff!" "A well diggers arse has nothing on Iceland!".

That would be kind of funny because thaen they would earn money on it being so damn cold and damn hot (the natural hot springs) at the same time. How's that for irony ?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

An ipad CANNOT , i repeat CANNOT , fulfill all the needs that a mac can.

exactly

and when it can, it'll just be a mac

typing more than the odd email's gonna drive you to connecting an external keyboard to it...and needing more than 7 inches , as we all do, will mean plugging to an external monitor...of course, either of these things might be wireless....

either way, a pad with a keyboard and monitor hooked up (if suitably powered) is very similar to a desktop situation, non albeit with the ability to undock the main unit and use it on the bus

if the ipad spells the end of the mac, due to it's popularity, then it spells the end of the pc too (or a windows equivalent)

then what...'cloud' would seem to want to restrict use to consumption and pads/slates aren't powerful enough to create with

everyone on kvr and the equivalent video editing forums will have nothing left to create with....

time to invest in hardware multitracking or bespoke video editing machines, i guess

p.s. there is no parallel to when apple changed to intel , dropping power pc (something it didn't do instantly)....dropping macs is another thing entirely spelling the end of the computer, not the improvement

[jupiter8]

then what...'cloud' would seem to want to restrict use to consumption and pads/slates aren't powerful enough to create with

everyone on kvr and the equivalent video editing forums will have nothing left to create with....

time to invest in hardware multitracking or bespoke video editing machines, i guess

Ok.
http://createdigitalmotion.com/2010/06/ ... emo-reels/

[whyterabbyt]

What PCs did diffirent were that they were customisable,

NO, what they did differently, as ZenPunkHippy told you, is that they moved the horsepower to your desk.

a home computer was like a mac, made by asingle company with dedicated software.

So the original PC was a home computer, by that definition.

Actually you could safely say that a mac is nothing more than an Amiga clone.

No, I'd never say that myself.

Everything, why something is popular in the first place, for a single reason, because it can fufill diffirent needs.

So Lady Gaga is popular because she can fulfoll different needs?

Nope, I dont think so. Popularity isnt relevant.

Mainframes missed three important thing, portability , managebility and affordability.

And PCs miss other things. What's your point, I never said they were the same, I said they were different.

If something exactly the same as X replaces X then X hasnt really been replaced, has it? Thats just more circular arguing.

I dont see what 100% has to do with popularity. Things here are pure numbers.

Why? Because you say so?

Will you compare thousnads with millions ?

Yes.

If it fulfills the same need, then its a similar product.

except when its not, of course.

An aeroplane transport thing as a ship, yes as entities they are very diffirent , but the needs they fullfil is exactly the same.

An ipad CANNOT , i repeat CANNOT , fulfill all the needs that a mac can.

A PC COULD NOT, repeat COULD NOT fulfill all the needs that a mainframe could.

Of course needs overalp, OF COURSE an ipad can do thing that a mac can, OF COURSE an ipad can replace to an extend a mac. But to what extend?

right now, the ipad is a more powerful computer than Macs were up to a few short years ago. there are millions of macs less powerful than the iPad that did all sorts of stuff. they were used to make films and albums, design magazines and newspapers, write books, yadda yadda yadda. are you're arguing that the iPad wont ever be able do what we used them for then, or that its capabilities will never match those macs you can buy in the store now?

most people with computers dont need the horsepower of a modern desktop machine. fact. more and more people use laptops, in fact, which are usually far less capable. basic usage is all that many people want; thats why netbooks sell in the millions.

something like the iPad is more than capable of replacing something like the laptop for the large majority of laptop users. and Jobs is more than capable of turning Apple into an iPad/iPhone company. If he does, though, all it will mean is that when mainstream laptops become more like the iPad form factor, you'll wind up with the choice between a closed 'new' commodity or a couple of legacy 'open' ones.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

then what...'cloud' would seem to want to restrict use to consumption and pads/slates aren't powerful enough to create with

everyone on kvr and the equivalent video editing forums will have nothing left to create with....

time to invest in hardware multitracking or bespoke video editing machines, i guess

Ok.
http://createdigitalmotion.com/2010/06/ ... emo-reels/

not even gonna bother looking...the link says it all.......youtube is to video editing what 'my first kitchen'-type toys are to haute cuisine

maybe you still multitrack on a ps2 with that mtv program, but some of us ned a little more function

[jupiter8]

then what...'cloud' would seem to want to restrict use to consumption and pads/slates aren't powerful enough to create with

everyone on kvr and the equivalent video editing forums will have nothing left to create with....

time to invest in hardware multitracking or bespoke video editing machines, i guess

Ok.
http://createdigitalmotion.com/2010/06/ ... emo-reels/

not even gonna bother looking...the link says it all.......youtube is to video editing what 'my first kitchen'-type toys are to haute cuisine

Yes and Protools would never replace the 2 inch 24 track analog either.

[whyterabbyt]

and when it can, it'll just be a mac

no, it wont. the mac isnt a closed-and-gated ecosystem the way the ipad is.