Entertainment

What does the future hold for Computers?

I have touched briefly on this subject before as part of a Weekly Question topic (Weekly Question), but thought I would bring it up again, as listening to 5Live this morning they had a little on 1986, and how we seemed to be better off then than now (or was it the other way around???). One thing is for sure though we didn't have half the entertainment stuff then, that we do today. So lets take a trip down Memory lane...

Computers in 1986

The Atari ST, I Loved It!

The new Apple Mac was introduced, which had an enormous 1 Mb of RAM, and a new style keyboard. This sold in the states for around $2,500. In the same year Compaq introduced the first 386 based PC, Microsoft was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, selling shares at $21 each, and MS-DOS 3.2 was released.
I myself had an Atari 510ST computer with the plug in memory taking it to a whopping great big 1Mb of RAM, and a lightning fast speed of 8mHz.
I was playing games such as Bubble Bobble, Boulder Dash and the graphically fantastic Defender of the Crown.
Meanwhile schools in the UK had, had more than 2 years to get acquainted with the BBC Micro, which had 64K of memory, and the BASIC language at it's heart. You also had to send away your programs as part of a computer course.

THE choice for schools in the UK

But I was one of the odd ones out, whilst I had the ATARI ST in 1986, most of my mates had, Spectrums, or Spectrum plus's, Sir Clive Sinclairs little baby. There were very, very few people who had one of those ludricously expensive PC things, although a few had the Amstrad with the green screen display.

The computers were fantastic as far as I was concerned, and the development of them was going fast, things were been touted in the pipeline, like a new computer to rival the ST from Commodore, as a replacement for the aging, but mega popular Commodore 64. (I later owned an AMIGA 1200, and thought it the best thing since sliced bread!)

The other things that made these computers so popular were the vast software library, all on either cassette, or if you were lucky 4 or 5 floppy discs! The only frustrating part was if your game failed to load in the last 20 secs and you had to rewind the tape and start again. Oh Happy Days.

Donkey Kong, Jump them Fireballs!

As for the Internet and email, what's that then??

Computers in 2006

Well the PC now rules supreme, and the old computers of yester-year have been confined to the annuls of history. I got a lot of my info from here Old Computers so am grateful to them for their information, but the very word museum in the URL title speaks volumes. Indeed the world URL was never conceived in 1986. Where are Commodore, Atari and Sinclair?

I have at home a 1.6Ghz PC with 512mb RAM, and a 40Gb hard drive, with a 2Mb broadband connection to the internet. I also have a DVD writer and a CDROM, I do have a few additional things, but hardly worth a mention here. I have what I consider to be a dated PC.

Most PC's nowadays have at a speed of at least 2Gb, have memory of at least 1Gb, hard drives of 60Gb, NO Floppy Drives, DVD Dual-layer Writers, sound cards that have more memory and power than 5 computers in '86, internet connection available up to 8Mb broadband, and Windows XP as standard.

We take the internet and emailing for granted now, and most business would find it impossible to function without it. BASIC as far as I know is no longer taught in schools, but I have know idea what is (HTML possibly?). Multi-tasking is the key word, and computers can do 7 or 8 jobs at the same time with no discernible change in speed.
Laptops have become the norm for business men, and even the most basic ones would have the nerds of 1986 salivating.
Another development is Bluetooth and wireless, enabling business men to hook up and check their emails from any place that has a Hot Spot. But this development leads to an increase in computer crime and Identity theft, something unheard of in the 80's.
But what is really amazing is the price of these computers, relatively speaking they are oceans cheaper than their predecessors, indeed you can pick up a decent 2nd hand PC AND Monitor for less than £50 these days.

Games too, have come on leaps and bounds, those that used to gasp at the graphics of 'Defender of the Crown' (a masterpiece in it's time), would be close to a coroney at the graphics of some of the games today, but it's not only the graphics, it's the sounds, music, and sheer size of the games that are incredible. Add to that the fact you can play someone thousands of miles away, and the whole gameplay scenario just blows the 80's into dust. It's like comparing alogarithmicm book in the 80's to a Cray supercomputer.

But that is today, and if you tell kids how it was in the past they laugh, yet they all love to play, Pacman, and Donkey Kong (Now in a joystick that you plug into the TV). But they are not the only ones that laugh, we have a chuckle too. So what will the kids of the future be using in 20 years time...?

Fifa 07, Feel the Football

Computers in 2026??

I can foresee in 2026, that all peripherals will be wireless, and the PC will be integrated as part of a Home Centre. The Home CPU, will control all manner of things, from the TV to the Music system. There will be no need for a keyboard as everything will be done through voice recognition, the fluctuations ineveryone'ss voices will enable the computer to know who is wanting to do the work/play, and will adjust aviewablee screen to that user, and because of voice recognition, there will be no chance of piracy or hacking, as even taped voices will not work.
Refridgerators will be linked into the computers main hub, and will register not only the product removed, but how much of it is used, and whether or not it requires replacing. A voice and screen will tell the home owner when stocks are getting low, or when stocks are close to being out of date. The home owner can then command the fridge to order more of what is required, and delivery arranged at amutuallyy agreeable date.

In the work place there will be less people having to go in, as most of the work will be done at home, allowing greater freedom for leisure activities. Emailing, will be available in every corner of the globe, as will internet access, and speeds of 100gB will be common place.
DVD's and CD's will be obsolete, and all data will be stored on Flash Media. In effect there will be no need to have a PC workstation, as the PC of the future will incorporate all other entertainment Media into one box.

95% of the games in 2026 will have some sort of virtual reality element to them, and controls will be done through such devices as gloves, and even helmets. Sounds a bit too much? Well they have a golf game that uses a club, and measures the swing to find out how well you have done. That is now!

So there you have it, looks to be very interesting times ahead of us, and it looks like we will all be having more times for ourselves and our families. That is of course if we don't get carried away with all the technology and allow computers to become too clever.Becausee if we do... well Terminator 3 scenario anyone????