3 ms·

It's better to think of iThings as semi-flexible embedded devices instead of general purpose computers.

• jacquesm 9y ago
  Just imagine what the PC landscape would look like if the various big entities active in that space had figured out this trick before we - thankfully - got Linux on the server, meaning that if they try to take it away there will be a huge roar. That's roughly what stands between us and losing our ability to compute with whatever hardware we want, whatever we want. Cory Doctorow had it right all along, I'm just surprised with how fast we are getting there. http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/coming-war-general-computation/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/coming-war-general-com...
  • pjmlp 9y ago
    Easy, it would be as Atari, Amiga and Apple systems were. The PC landscape only happened thanks to IBM's mistakes.
    • jacquesm 9y ago
      > Easy, it would be as Atari, Amiga and Apple systems were. None of those were locked down, none of those required manufacturer cooperation in order to run other operating systems or whatever application their users desired.
      • pjmlp 9y ago
        Sure they were, ever tried to use a Zorro board on a NuBus slot? What about using MPW Object Pascal for doing Workbench MUI apps? Ever bothered buying the developer manuals or SDKs from them?