Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!csdev!ll1a!spl1!laidbak!att!alberta!ubc-cs!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cat.cmu.edu!ns
From: ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT high speed modem
Keywords: V.32, 9600bps full duplex
Message-ID: <8752@spl1.UUCP>
Date: 27 Oct 88 07:15:47 GMT
References: <1583@oakhill.UUCP> <19006@apple.Apple.COM> <3344@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <342@ufnmr.UUCP>
Sender: news@spl1.UUCP
Distribution: na
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 43

In article <342@ufnmr.UUCP> gareth@ufnmr.UUCP (Gareth J. Barker) writes:
>In article <3344@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) writes:
>>...
>> 
>> The "compleate" academic computer of the 1990's _must_ be able to handle
>> NTSC<->B&W<->RGB conversions in a hassle-free (and hopefully, standardized)
>
>Don't forget the rest of the world.  I don't imagine adding PAL/SECAM/NTSC/(HDTV?)
>and any other standards that may emerge will be easy (possible?) in a general
>purpose machine.  (A couple of years ago the machine the BBC in Britain used
>for NTSC/PAL conversion was half the size of a room).
>
Your point is well taken...only a few backwash countries are blighted with
NTSC (which is said to mean "Never The Same Color")... :-)

The Sony Universal monitor can display PAL/SECAM/NTSC and computer video, and
costs only ~$700 and is about 1 cubic foot, mostly CRT. Scan-conversion is
also much simpler now that video frame-stores are relatively cheap.

My point is that computers should make the bold move from microwave ovens to
the television/telephone, first on local nets--later over
optical-phone/cable-TV lines. Seems simple but the politics aren't.

(Flame on)
What is needed is a new bold initiative on the order of the Communications
Act of 1934, which realized that the broadcast spectrum is a finite natural
resource whose benefit could be fully realized only by allocation and
regulation. If you look at the communications resources of the society at
large as a system that is similarly limited in bandwidth (because of the huge
costs of building it, and the huge waste in duplicating it again and again
with similar but non-integrated technologies) then it would seem reasonable
that a new communications policy should be instituted for all public
carriers, to insure the integration of computer/video/telephone technology.

The success or failure of this effort could have a powerful influence on the
strength of the country and its productivity well into the next century.

(Flame off)

-- 
Nicholas Spies			ns@cat.cmu.edu.arpa
Center for Design of Educational Computing
Carnegie Mellon University