Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!etive!aipna!alex
From: alex@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Alex Zbyslaw)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Horseless Carriages [was: desktop of the future]
Message-ID: <457@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 13 Jan 89 08:33:11 GMT
References: <8901100246.AA14221@multimax.encore.com> <210@maths.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: alex@eusip.ed.ac.uk (Alex Zbyslaw)
Organization: CSTR, University of Edinburgh
Lines: 21

In article <210@maths.tcd.ie>  writes:
>In fact the only *real* differences are that cars go faster and can travel for
>longer distances more easily. Socially and psychologically they perform the
>same function.

Couldn't disagree more.  The fact that you can travel long distances in
short times, at your convenience is a considerable factor both socially and
psychologically.  Scale really does matter.

The same, I think, hold for computers.  Eniac (if it still exists) is not
equivalent to a Sun or a Cray, which (hopefully) won't be equivalent to the
nth next generation.

What matters most is what you can do with it, not some abstract functional
equivalence.

--Alex

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