Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!limbo!taylor
From: heerickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Dan Herrick)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Age of the Hand Held
Message-ID: <1504@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 30 Nov 90 01:46:49 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
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Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Bob Gautier writes:

> .. we are also beginning to see the introduction of very widespread and
> fast digital communications, which I think will in the end remove the
> necessity for local computation.

It is nice to have a computer available, right at hand, so to speak.
 
> Over recent years, in moving from the single mainframe, to remote
> timesharing, to the personal computer, and finally to the X terminal,
> we have seen the balance between local and remote computing move.
> Currently we are using machines enormously more powerful than the machines
> we once used as standalone personal computers, simply as user interface
> servers.

But a similar machine is being used by someone down the hall as
his standalone personal computer.  Both configurations are needed.
 
> I think this will happen to the handheld too.  It will be little more than
> a personal terminal -- a very intelligent cellular phone...

The cellular phone is more than a communication device.  It continually
broadcasts the physical location of its user to one of the two local
cellular phone systems - thus there is a large computer belonging to
a local utility that always knows where the cellular phone user is.
Some people will avoid, on principal, giving away such information.

One of the important uses for the laptop computer is to allow one to
continue work or play while travelling, including air travel.  I once
tried to use an Air Phone while spending an unplanned two hours sitting
in an airplane.  That technology does not work as well as cellular
phones on the ground.  A computer access device that does not work well
on an airplane would be crippled from the point of view of an important
part of the market (the part that pays high prices to have it first).

Electromagnetic Spectrum space is a critical resource.  The cellular
allocations can accomodate ten times as much traffic as they are getting
now, maybe even a hundred, but not ten thousand times.  This is a 
technical problem and solvable.

Users of cellular phones (and personal wireless phones) don't seem to
realize that they are essentially standing up in the middle of a
crowded stadium and shouting.  Anyone who wants to listen to their
conversation can.  Many people who do NOT use such devices do realize
that they are broadcasting stations.

You probably use your computer to compute your taxes and plan your
budget.  Do you want to do this in such a way that anyone who wants
to look over your shoulder can?  Do you really believe everybody does?
I keep an elaborate personal financial database on my hard disk in my 
computer.  I won't keep it on his hard disk on his computer.  He will
plan security on his computer to protect his data.  I don't pay rent
every month for the space that holds that data base.  I don't want to.

In summary, there is a market for the centralized system you propose.
However, there is a market for decentralized systems, and now that we
have them, no one will take them away from us.

Dan Herrick