Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!exodus-bb!khb From: khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman fpgroup) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754 Message-ID: Date: 7 Dec 90 23:07:45 GMT References: <1635@unix386.Convergent.COM> <1990Dec2.014554.3491@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <2760@cirrusl.UUCP> <1990Dec07.194407.29083@digibd.com> Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM Organization: Sun MegaSystems Lines: 40 In-reply-to: rhealey@digibd.com's message of 7 Dec 90 19:44:07 GMT In article <1990Dec07.194407.29083@digibd.com> rhealey@digibd.com (Rob Healey) writes: ... Not to burst any bubbles but, my toaster oven and thermostat .... We aren't taking rocket scientists here kids, we're talking Numbtendo addicts and video junkies. Consider the humble camera. Used to be very simple, a box with a hole. Good enough for most purposes. OK, so we evolved lenses. Then, for quite a time the plateau was reached (for the medium-high end) with 35mm SLR cameras. Of course, it took a bit of savvy to get good results and lighting was critical.... Then along came folks like Minolta. 3 microprocessors, a bevy of sensors, communication channel for outboard devices (flash) and now nearly anyone can walk into a completely darkened room, point and click and get a perfectly focused picture (* it really works with the 'smart' flash). In order to make computers "simple" and "easy" to use, and accessible to the bulk of "nintendo junkies" (read folks who have better ways to spend their time than parsing ALGOL68 docsets) is by building vastly more powerful systems. 28mips (whatever they are) is several hundreds of orders of magnitude too small for a really user friendly system. A friend of mine has a good example. He goes to his favorite pub (duke of endinburgh, for those who know the sillycone valley area) and waves to his favorite server. She looks him over, and picks out what he wants to drink ... based on his mood. He claims she's almost never wrong. I want my computer to be at least half as good. (and it should do the dishes ;>). -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- Keith H. Bierman kbierman@Eng.Sun.COM | khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM SMI 2550 Garcia 12-33 | (415 336 2648) Mountain View, CA 94043