Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!decwrl!limbo!taylor
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The next 15 years
Message-ID: <1047@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 30 Jul 90 18:32:07 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 23
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Eugene N. Miya writes:

> What is needed in a next stage of integration.  A level of packaging
> which must combine software and hardware into a higher-level module.

You mean when you buy a "word processor" it will be a smart box with ROM
equivalent software and a CPU that you plug into a common bus, sort of like
plugging a compute server into an ethernet and bringing it up on your
Xterminal?  Makes sense, and could even be built upon X and ether (which 
would be wonderful... for all I bemoan the heavy overhead of X this is 
something that OS/2 can't do).

> These modules must be useable by nearly everyone, not just EEs or S/WE.
> The point will be the assembly of these modules (Lego? Erector sets?)

Component stereo. And there will be different standards: some wired up like
your typical audiophile's layout, but with ethernet or FDDI or something
(maybe SCSI-derived, even); some where you plug modules into a backplane,
and some like Burrough's N-Gen system or the Amiga 1000 where you plug them
together like Lego blocks. And there will be adaptors, so compatibility won't
depend on hardware, but on protocols.

Peter da Silva