>From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>
>>
>> Or, there is the argument that "I paid about as much for this computer
>as I
>> did for my refrigerator, and all I had to do with the refrigerator was
>> bring it home and plug it in and it worked fine for the next ten y >>
>
>Computers are several orders of magnitude more complex than
>refrigerators, the same way a NASA shuttle is more complex than a
>catapult. Just the CPU has how many hundred million switches?
Actually, that's irrelevant.
A modern game console (e.g. XBox) is essentially a modern high end PC with one thing
removed:
Flexibility
The reason that PCs are so widely popular is their amazing flexibility. People use PCs
in ways that the creators never anticipated. PCs replaced dedicated word processors
because they could do all of the same things plus run spreadsheets, play games,
emulate terminals, store data, etc.
You could (circa 1994) design and market a computer that was locked down - say, only
had an OS plus a productivity suite. But it wouldn't compete with a general purpose
device that could do that plus connect to the Internet - base functionality circa 1995.
Maybe with total cost of ownership issues (e.g. viruses, support), shipping locked
down "read-only" systems might make sense in the future. But people want upgrades, and
want flexibility - it's a hard choice.
Joshua
[Sent from PocketPC 2002 with WiFi]
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