Can there be room for another system?

[dovegrace]

Given that a sheet of paper is still one of the most powerful and frequently used tools used by man, I'm not sure a virtual 3D environment is the solution.  2D is still the best for data representation.  There's a reason why the virtual reality craze died out in the early 90's.

As I said, it'd be hard to find a practical use for the 3D environment.  Still be interesting to see how someone would pull it off.

As for VR dying out, I don't think it's dead completely.  Rather, it became a sort of spiritual predecessor to the "virtual online worlds" that seem to be popular these days. Can't remember the name offhand, but it reminded me of "Better Than Life" from Red Dwarf...

[alewis]

Actually, there is an very very real use for a 3D interface, even on a 2D screen. Vista, OSX, et al are *NOT* 3D interfaces. They merely present a 3D look and feel, much like games such as Wolfenstein.

I wrote - albeit very clumsily - on this here

here -  UKCentral

A true 3D *interactive* interface would bring huge productivity gains. Please, read the article (and feel free to comment on it there as well)

[Legerdemain]

I would like to write this very long answer on this one, attacking the problem from various angles and who knows what.

But... thing is... no matter how pathetic it may sound... I think that the main reason to why things have seemed to come to a halt... it that computing have gotten mainstream.

Today when, like, 95% of the world is running Windows, they simply feel perfectly happy with that. They do get scared when having to update to a new OS, or even a new version of Windows (which also could be the reason of updating the OS is becoming more and more autmated). The more mainstream, the less innovation. I do believe it could be as simple as that, if stripping away all the two million arguments that it simply can't be that easy... that there's fourteen million other aspects that has to be taken into consideration. Well, so it may be then.

So... will we have to wait another 10 years? Well, I think we could have to wait longer than that... just look at how long it took for the television to evolve into something better, once it had gotten mainstream. And what do we get? Flat screens which, no matter how you look at it, will bring problems with pixel aspect ratio and too visible MPEG compression into each and everyones home (at least here in Sweden where most of the digitally sent channels look like pure crap as soon as too much is starting to happen on the screen), people looking at 4:3 sent video signals in 16:9 format... and, god knows what. People in general don't care about quality. They buy what they is led to believe is quality... and every now and then things that in reality could be considered as 'worse' get the people vote as being the 'best' and voilá... there is no turning back. Because yet another change, that would simply be too much to handle.

I'm personally getting really tired of the constant pressure of having to 'update' this or that. I'm bothered by the fact that people with money is doing all they can to make way for the next CD-format... with the main argument that more is better. I'm tired of having to deal with people selling hardware and software they know nothing about (just having had a crash course in how to sell stuff to people). Well, what do you know...

It feels like a fresh breeze seeing Nintendo trying to change the way we LOOK at, and PLAY games. Instead of putting a better graphics chip and a faster processor, inside the console just to be able to play FIFA 2009 or Ridge Racer 152 with even more realistic graphics. I just wish that something similar soon will happen with computing and the OS'es we use on a daily basis. Vista just feels like WindowsXP Ultra Mega Deluxe. Not 'the next step'.

So, to answer another one of your questions... I don't have the slightest clue what 'the next step' will be until I see it. Like the majority of the computer using people out there. Just like I had no clue that Nintendo, with Wii, would hit the spot and within a matter of seconds convince me that what they will offer in the near future is the future of gaming.

The only thing I have a clue about is that the way things look and feel today, when I'm toying around with my computers, is not in any way nearly as fun as it was some ten years ago. I do it because I have to. Not because I want to. And everything else I have mentioned, concerning people in general, just adds to the 'have to' side of computer use.

The day when someone presents a way of dealing with the computer in a way that seems attractive to me. Well, then I will know...

[itix]

when it was fun (C=64/128/Amiga/Atari) there was always breakthrough technology or something that came out and stirred up alot of commotion.

Back then we didnt have
- internet
- 1600x1200x32 or better gfx
- flat monitors
- free movies and music
- watch movies
- harddisks
- USB
- 16bit sound
- 2GB RAM
- DVD/CDROM
- broadband
- PCI expansion cards

And maybe something else I cant remember. I dont miss technology from 80s.

[alewis]

Its not a case of missing technology, but missing "fun".

Everything is so bloated - why do we need 2GB RAM? 3GHZ+processors? huge disks? Simple fact is, we don't.

[itix]

Everything is so bloated - why do we need 2GB RAM? 3GHZ+processors? huge disks? Simple fact is, we don't

Why we needed an Amiga when C64 at 1MHz and 64kB was enough?

[recidivist]

 Based on the analysis that a huge percentage of the internet traffic is porn related,and that much of the graphics are for that and advertising,on the history of photobraphy being used for naughty French cards very early,I make the prediction/observation:

 

  The porn/sex industry are already trying to build a REALLY personal robot(android) that will use lots of computing power for speech interaction and mimicing intimate behavior. It has been reported  quite a while ago that certain Japanese were entirely too involved with an on-screen computer "girl".a 3D model would find buyers.I KNOW its sick but people already do/buy a lot of sick stuff.
  Banks and other service businesses would love a worker that never argues and always does as told.Just a step up? from telephone voice mail!

 Of course this is not a new idea;like the raygun ,atom bombs,etc. there have been such devices?/creatures? in science fiction for years.

[alewis]

True, for many many tasks. I used to frequent the "bleeding edge" sites, when someone got too carried away or particularly obnoxious with "my rig is faster than yours" I'd put up a simple challenge; "write and print a letter. I bet my rig against yours that I'll have it printed, probably even before yours has POSTed"  I didn't state that my rig as a C64 with Easyscript cartridge :-)

My personal view is that a PII is still a perfectly adequate platform for 90% of office users, and probably 80% of home (non-games) users.

The complication with 8-bit comes from graphics. GEOS, for example, was/is good, but very slow on the 64. And without resorting to tricks such as the REU, 64kb isn't quite enough for graphical manipulation.

However, the real reason is simple: multitasking. Something the PC of today still has difficulty with.

itix wrote:
Why we needed an Amiga when C64 at 1MHz and 64kB was enough?

[alewis]

Oddly enough, porn is/was no longer the predominate traffic on the 'net. P2P traffic is.

There are lies, dammed lies, and stats, and depending on how one expresses a given protocol as a % of "what", (ie total bytes or total transaction transfers), one can argue between P2P and email, notably spam.

However, it is worth noting that the largest customer segment (ex telco's) of a certain well known infrastructure manufacturer was "anonymous", and widely suspect to be the adult entertainment industry :-)

[coldfish]

I think its great that we can take the technology for granted.  And that its affordable and increasingly powerful.  Even better, those who are even mildly adventurous can swap Windows for an alternative OS with as little as a free live-CD.  Try DamnSmallLinux  or Knoppix or Ubuntu.
I frugal-installed DSL on an old, junk K6-400 machine the other day, and now have a virtually bulletproof and -damn fast-, run from RAM, set-top, web-surfing box running Firefox for my folks, better yet, plug it into the ADSL connection and it "just works".

When you look at the proprietary/closed systems of the 80's and their marketing/manufacturing objectives, its hard to argue that computer technology would be as advanced as it is today, were those companies still big players.
C= (et al) were busy re-serving the same 8bit technology for 10 years in as many different flavours, before they bought the Amiga, then they dropped 8bit like it was hot and let the Amiga stagnate for another 5+ years before releasing an incremental update.

Yeah, they were fun, but computer tech' has moved on a lot since then.  Its a case of moving along with it.

[Waccoon]

People who complain about outrageous system requirements are massively impatient, as they want cutting-edge software with ancient hardware.  Most OSes, including Windows, work just fine on older hardware.  Most games made by GOOD developers adapt to the hardware available, rather than force you to buy a $4,000 "gaming rig."

Focus on function, please, not speed.

PS - I spent the same amount of money on my PC two years ago as I did for my A1200.  I see no reason to spend $1,000+ for my next computer, which will be a Conroe.

[GreggBz]

However, the real reason is simple: multitasking. Something the PC of today still has difficulty with.

I'd have to differ on that point. At work (I'm a Linux admin) I routinely have about 20 windows open. 6 xterms shelled into different systems, a spreadsheet or two, e-mail, xmms perhaps, 13 browser tabs, mysql testing, etc..etc.. I reach critical mass before my workstation does, although firefox has a bad habit of barfing.

Same goes for Windows, which I use at home for development.
I find myself with VS.NET (A real monster), iTunes, Firefox, FTP clients, email, and system folders everywhere. Not usually a problem.

I think *games* modularization of the components and good competition are the catalyst for hardware development, whether we need it or not.
I've heard "Do you plan on playing 3d games" asked by many PC salesmen. If the answer is no, then subtract 600 dollars from the system price.

[Waccoon]

ALewis:   Actually, there is an very very real use for a 3D interface, even on a 2D screen. Vista, OSX, et al are *NOT* 3D interfaces. They merely present a 3D look and feel, much like games such as Wolfenstein.

What you described in that article rarely works.  As usual, it looks good on paper, but is not useful in practice.

Remember those "fake" 3D games like Welltris, and those various (and hideously annoying) 3D breakout games where you shot the ball at a wall in the distance?  I shudder to think how that would work with icons!

Here's what I wrote as a comment for your article:

It makes more sense to group windows or rip interface elements from one window and move them to another, or use the zooming paradigm, where windows can be made much smaller and bigger at will (solving a lot of problems for visually impared people to boot).  There aren't many people who have solid relational skills to handle interfaces with depth, especially "fake" depth.  You should always avoid "stacking" stuff, if possible.

Also, setting up a consistant work area with custom window styling helps.    This work area is saved and restored whenever you log in.  You don't have to fumble with large folder views if you create groups of your favorite folders with special borders with all the useless peripheral buttons removed.  Today's GUI toolkits don't allow much flexibility as far as removing "standard" window elements.

We've had picture within picture on our TVs for a while.  We've had virtual desktops for a while.  Why not combine both ideas?  Isn't that why windows were created?

Application support for clever organization depends on what GUI toolkit is used.  Regardless of what tools the OS offers, developers will usually respect system-wide programming guidelines, but will rarely, if ever, use only system tools to write their software.  Java suffers from this problem considerably (probably given how many times Sun rewrote their toolkit -- and it still sucks).

BTW, WinFS was canned, at least in its exiting form.  I doubt it would have been truly useful, as it depends on metadata to acutally store information, and most content creators do a horrid job of setting this vital information.  We still sort our MP3s by filename!

What would make more sense is a flexible rules system, allowing people to write rules about how information is displayed, based on type, age, quantity, filename syntax, etc., and allowing you to apply rules to certain folders.  Think regular expressions meets folder views.  For example, you might have a natural sorting rule, which will sort things as "1, 2, 03, 4, 40".  XP does this by default, and I find it annoying as my UNIX servers and application tools do not.  Another rule is that any folder that contains a catalog would automatically count the number of records and display it as a property in the folder view.  XP can be configured to do some of these things, but it requires some nasty registry hacking.  A clean, CLI-based way of doing this would be nice, with a simpler GUI-based front-end for people who can't handle scripting.  It's basicly filtering, which is what UNIX people have been doing for years by piping the output of command-line programs to text files.  Except here, we do it in realtime, inside a folder.

I think this is what the technology inside WinFS was meant to do, but nobody thought about using it that way.

Oh yeah, a CLI bar would be nice, so we could select a bunch of files inside a GUI, which would be stored as a default array.  Then, write a single command line, such as:

"pngout $select {$select}*.pn2"

That would take every file selected, make a PNG out of it, and rename it so the file exetension would be ".pn2".  Doing this as a traditional batch is sloppy; usually this is a job for Perl, which is a terrific way to add REAL bloat.

[alewis]

stick a floppy in an XP rig an format it.. and watch the system come to a halt

[adz]

TheMagicM wrote:
Please nothing Amiga related.  Think outside the box and take the tinfoil hats off.

cue the harp and the clouds, birds chirping..
back in the day of computing..when it was fun (C=64/128/Amiga/Atari) there was always breakthrough technology or something that came out and stirred up alot of commotion.  

Nowadays it seems as though its just ho-hum.  Nothing really catches my eye and it seems as though the IT world is obsessed with speed/number crunching.  Will we have to wait 10+ years for another groundbreaking achievement in computing?  What is the next big thing that should be accomplished?  What are we looking for?  Drop the 'fan favorite' cpu talk (like sticking to PPC).  x86 isnt bad.  So what we're really after is a good operating system?

Funny, I was thinking about this earlier today, computing really doesn't excite me anymore, even in the days of 486 and Pentium, it was quite exciting, not as exciting as the C64/Amiga days, but it was certainly better than now.

Personally, I think it has something to do with the fact that we have reached a point where the most basic modern system can do just about everything the average home user could want it to do. In the 486 days, you could shell out 5 or 6 grand on a high end machine and it still would struggle with a then current game, thats not the case anymore. Sure with an entry level system you won't get fancy graphics, but the game will still be very playable.

Last year I moved from an Athlon 2500+ Barton based machine to an Athlon 64 4000+ and didn't notice any difference in perfomance with day to day tasks. However, having read some articles pertaining to Windows Vista RC1, things do look a little bleak. E.g. machines running a GeForce 7900 were experiencing excessive fan noise because the chip was running at 100% just trying to render the bloody GUI. How on earth is that supposed to be exciting? Let alone ground breaking? The only thing something like that breaks is the bank. Meh, personally, I loathe this technological age we now live in, computers are no longer just a hobby, they are part of our day to day routine and routine is, IMO, a tad boring.

[GreggBz]

alewis wrote:
stick a floppy in an XP rig an format it.. and watch the system come to a halt

Seriously, I just tried it, (formating a floppy, it took some real digging to actually find one here at work) it wasn't that bad. I could still browse use openoffice etc.. And I'd say my 2.5Ghz PC did it at least 5%-6% faster then my A1200 :lol: