Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!cuae2!gatech!lll-lcc!well!hoptoad!gnu From: gnu@hoptoad.UUCP Newsgroups: rec.ham-radio,rec.ham-radio.packet,comp.misc Subject: Re: Public Digital Radio Service Message-ID: <1805@hoptoad.uucp> Date: Sat, 14-Feb-87 08:02:12 EST Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1805 Posted: Sat Feb 14 08:02:12 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Feb-87 00:32:55 EST References: <381@telesoft.UUCP> Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 70 Xref: utgpu rec.ham-radio:404 rec.ham-radio.packet:74 comp.misc:230 I had an interesting idea the other day. I've been thinking for a few months about good ways to design a portable "dynabook" style computer (see Alan Kay's stuff from Xerox PARC years ago). Basically something the size of a book that's as useful as a book (or a library) or notebook, and not nearly as much pain as MSDOS or vi. But unlike a book it's dynamic -- sort of like rec.ham-radio versus the ham magazines. N-way interaction, editing, searching, and all that. One problem is that due to power constraints there is not much info you can keep in a portable box the size of a book. For example, hard disks take too much power and space, even if they could stand being dropped in a mudpuddle a few times a year. One way to alleviate this problem is by providing good portable communications. Keep most of the information in a base machine (and/or in a citywide library) and just stash the stuff you are currently working on inside the portable. Unfortunately, there is this problem. We could only let you move stuff in or out of the portable when you were cabled up to your base station, but that severely limits how useful this thing is (can't make appointments, or receive and respond to messages during the working day, or call up references while in a meeting, or look up something in a "book" that you didn't load into the portable this morning). We could build in a cellular phone but that adds $2000 (if handheld) and the per-minute charges would eat you alive. And the bandwidth is bad since it's designed for voice. We could use infrared links but they are low speed and low reliability and carrying your 'book' outside on the lawn wouldn't work on sunny days, nor would it work when you weren't in line-of-sight. We could use ham packet radio links but the *&^$%#@ hams are too stuck on keeping the spectrum free for yammering at each other. How many people would learn morse code and radio regs so they could buy a 'dynabook'? Damn few, and with good reason. Also, you couldn't do business over it. And the bandwidth is bad because it takes Special Government Permission to run at a reasonable speed. We could use commercial radio frequencies but then you'd have to pay somebody rental to use it, even when just talking between your 'book and your home computer. Plus a major hassle for the manufacturer in getting the FCC to give out some frequencies everyplace somebody wanted to use a 'book. Now if the PDRS proposal had a chance in hell of passing, I might even feel comfortable about building and selling a dynabook using PDRS as a communications method. When in your own home, it would automatically use very low power to talk to your base system (that IBM PC you'd never use again once you had the 'book). When out in the world, you'd still be connected, via other peoples' base stations and public repeaters. BUT NOOOOOO!!! This is not an attempt to start another morse code flame war. I probably won't even get around to reading the ham groups for another six months. I am just hoping to slide the idea into a few of your ossified heads that you are giving up possibilities that you are incapable of imagining by shooting down every proposal to give the public some free access digital spectrum space. -- John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu Love your country but never trust its government. -- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania