6 ms·

Executive Computer: Mother of All Markets or Pipe Dream Driven by Greed? (1992)

32 points by dayve 9y ago

TwelveNights 9y ago
It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Also, > Once in the meeting, the executive could take notes on the device, and even order pizza for the group using a combination of custom electronic forms and wireless fax Close enough :P
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  During the mid '90s it was possible to get mobile internet connectivity at dialup speeds but it wasn't easy. Also, it's remarkable how this preceded even the web.
- flukus 9y ago
  > It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Mobile phones weren't very far along at all. PDA's (personal digital assistants) on the other hand were slow, clunky, had hard to read screens and were expensive, but if we transported a 20 year old back in time they'd definitely recognize it as a primitive mobile phone. They gained actual phone functionality 5-10 years later. One of apples big innovations was to call them phones instead of PDA's, but when you include PDA's (including the apple newton) the evolutionary history is much more obvious.
  - _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
    After same Palms and a 1st gent Newton I loved - but was much too heavy - my first Smartphone was a Sony P800 around 2002 - where you could see the direction this is moving (although OS/UI/Pen was very bad). So I'd say 10 years after the article.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    I don't agree that PDA's were really slow, or clunky, that's hindsight, when I bought mine, they were expensive, fast, lightweight and awesome. By the time the Psion 5 came out around 1997 I was receiving email and sending faxes from a Psion 5 > PCMICA Adaptor > PCMCIA Modem (Goldcard) > Data Cable > Nokia 8110 and it certainly felt like the future :)
    - flukus 9y ago
      I may be confusing them with the later windows mobile and cheaper Casio ones (which I was rocking as a super sophisticated primary school kid at the time), but I remember noticeable input lag and frame rates of approximately 1fps. As amazing as they were at the time I still found them slow and clunky, was the Psion noticeably better?
      - dagw 9y ago
        Both Psion and Palm where really great. I used a Psion 5 (and later 5mx) as my main 'laptop' for a while. Working with text and spreadsheets was amazingly smooth, and it had a battery life that most smartphones today would envy. Oh and the keyboard design on the Psion 5 was one of the greatest pieces of industrial design the computer world has ever seen.
        tudorw 9y ago
        It's really difficult to talk about speed, it's clear we all experience it quite differently depending on our path, so for me I'm here, it was smooth, copy and paste just worked across apps, integration between calendar, todo and email(i think?) just worked, the device form factor, widescreen clamshell with the butterfly keyboard deserves a comeback, imagine the spec you could cram in, for reading and writing a wider screen for me is preferable to a taller one.
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      Psion + Cable + Phone was definitely clunky. I thought the Psion was a magnificent piece of design, but the keyboard wasn't good enough for anything except notes, and there were mechanical issues - the stylus holder on mine broke fairly quickly, and the paint finish started peeling. I changed to a Communicator, and the keyboard on that was even less suitable for anything longer than a brief email. Browsing before 3G wasn't a pleasant experience. Popular pages (e.g. BBC News) literally took minutes to download and render on the Communicator. But... you could see the potential was there. The Macbook I'm typing this on is what the Psion was trying to be. It's three times heavier than the Psion and it's not pocket sized, but that turns out to be less important than having a very usable keyboard and a small but fully functional colour screen. WiFi and Bluetooth phone connectivity mean that tethering - as it used to be called - isn't clunky any more. I remember reading about portable consumer touch screen interfaces back in the 70s, but the technology wasn't there to make a viable calculator, never mind a phone/PDA.
- bitwize 9y ago
  > It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? About this far along: http://campbelllawobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Zack-Morris-Phone-1-580x326.png http://campbelllawobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Za...
- dagw 9y ago
  It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? The technology to connect your mobile phone to a mobile fax machine to be able to send and receive documents while on the road definitely existed in 1992 and this: http://oldericsson.sweb.cz/obrazkymobily/gh197_all_colors.jpg http://oldericsson.sweb.cz/obrazkymobily/gh197_all_colors.jp... was the cutting edge of phone tech PDA's that we would today at least conceptually recognize as a smartphone-without-the-phone had been demoed by 1992. The first PDA with a built in phone was starting to be demoed by IBM in late 1992/early 1993, but not available to buy before somewhere round 94/95. The first 'smartphone' generally available was really the Nokia Communicator (1996) and the first smartphone following the whole phone is a touch screen design concept was the Ericsson R380 (1999) But I completely agree that the article is pretty amazing in its forecasts.
thisisit 9y ago
> At the other end is Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is "a pipe dream driven by greed." Well, Intel never really made a mark in the smartphone era too. Atom processors were a dud.
hashkb 9y ago
Personal flying machines: inevitable necessity or luxury?
- thisisit 9y ago
  Self driving flying electric cars - inevitable or pipe dream?
  - ccozan 9y ago
    Well, I would say, the mother of all mobility market!
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Driven by greedy descent!
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Doesn't these two statements describe best how Apple and Intel succeeded or failed in mobile? Apple: "[..] John Sculley, the chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., who says these personal communicators could be 'the mother of all markets.'" Intel: "[..] Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, [..] He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is 'a pipe dream driven by greed.'"
gumby 9y ago
On one hand, this is, as others have noted in this comment page, astonishingly prescient. On the other hand, Andrew Seybold was right in that it took 15 years for the iPhone to arrive. There was one "island of stability" with the amazing Palm & Psion devices (which weren't really "connected" devices), and then a discontinuous jump to the iPhone and its descendants. A sobering thought on the speed of technology uptake.
- mncharity 9y ago
  In the early 1990's, DEC (Digital?) Cambridge was demoing a tablet prototype, with assorted Moore's law curves suggesting viability in early 2000's. Then there was the wait for a market to gel. When will software development get a screen-replacing HMD? One might manage it with existing parts for under $1k... but absent a demonstrated market, no one is bothering to build it. So maybe next year. Maybe more capable systems happen first, because some "companies will pay $10k for this" has a clearer market story. Market prediction is hard. As is some tech path prediction. But some tech changes are more predictable, and when those intersect clear and funded needs... some forms of prescience seem less hard than others.

32 points by dayve 9y ago

It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Also, > Once in the meeting, the executive could take notes on the device, and even order pizza for the group using a combination of custom electronic forms and wireless fax Close enough :P

InclinedPlane 9y ago
During the mid '90s it was possible to get mobile internet connectivity at dialup speeds but it wasn't easy. Also, it's remarkable how this preceded even the web.
flukus 9y ago
> It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? Mobile phones weren't very far along at all. PDA's (personal digital assistants) on the other hand were slow, clunky, had hard to read screens and were expensive, but if we transported a 20 year old back in time they'd definitely recognize it as a primitive mobile phone. They gained actual phone functionality 5-10 years later. One of apples big innovations was to call them phones instead of PDA's, but when you include PDA's (including the apple newton) the evolutionary history is much more obvious.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y ago
  After same Palms and a 1st gent Newton I loved - but was much too heavy - my first Smartphone was a Sony P800 around 2002 - where you could see the direction this is moving (although OS/UI/Pen was very bad). So I'd say 10 years after the article.
- tudorw 9y ago
  I don't agree that PDA's were really slow, or clunky, that's hindsight, when I bought mine, they were expensive, fast, lightweight and awesome. By the time the Psion 5 came out around 1997 I was receiving email and sending faxes from a Psion 5 > PCMICA Adaptor > PCMCIA Modem (Goldcard) > Data Cable > Nokia 8110 and it certainly felt like the future :)
  - flukus 9y ago
    I may be confusing them with the later windows mobile and cheaper Casio ones (which I was rocking as a super sophisticated primary school kid at the time), but I remember noticeable input lag and frame rates of approximately 1fps. As amazing as they were at the time I still found them slow and clunky, was the Psion noticeably better?
    - dagw 9y ago
      Both Psion and Palm where really great. I used a Psion 5 (and later 5mx) as my main 'laptop' for a while. Working with text and spreadsheets was amazingly smooth, and it had a battery life that most smartphones today would envy. Oh and the keyboard design on the Psion 5 was one of the greatest pieces of industrial design the computer world has ever seen.
      - tudorw 9y ago
        It's really difficult to talk about speed, it's clear we all experience it quite differently depending on our path, so for me I'm here, it was smooth, copy and paste just worked across apps, integration between calendar, todo and email(i think?) just worked, the device form factor, widescreen clamshell with the butterfly keyboard deserves a comeback, imagine the spec you could cram in, for reading and writing a wider screen for me is preferable to a taller one.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    Psion + Cable + Phone was definitely clunky. I thought the Psion was a magnificent piece of design, but the keyboard wasn't good enough for anything except notes, and there were mechanical issues - the stylus holder on mine broke fairly quickly, and the paint finish started peeling. I changed to a Communicator, and the keyboard on that was even less suitable for anything longer than a brief email. Browsing before 3G wasn't a pleasant experience. Popular pages (e.g. BBC News) literally took minutes to download and render on the Communicator. But... you could see the potential was there. The Macbook I'm typing this on is what the Psion was trying to be. It's three times heavier than the Psion and it's not pocket sized, but that turns out to be less important than having a very usable keyboard and a small but fully functional colour screen. WiFi and Bluetooth phone connectivity mean that tethering - as it used to be called - isn't clunky any more. I remember reading about portable consumer touch screen interfaces back in the 70s, but the technology wasn't there to make a viable calculator, never mind a phone/PDA.
bitwize 9y ago
> It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? About this far along: http://campbelllawobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Zack-Morris-Phone-1-580x326.png http://campbelllawobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Za...
dagw 9y ago
It's crazy how accurate this article was. How far along were mobile phones during 1992? The technology to connect your mobile phone to a mobile fax machine to be able to send and receive documents while on the road definitely existed in 1992 and this: http://oldericsson.sweb.cz/obrazkymobily/gh197_all_colors.jpg http://oldericsson.sweb.cz/obrazkymobily/gh197_all_colors.jp... was the cutting edge of phone tech PDA's that we would today at least conceptually recognize as a smartphone-without-the-phone had been demoed by 1992. The first PDA with a built in phone was starting to be demoed by IBM in late 1992/early 1993, but not available to buy before somewhere round 94/95. The first 'smartphone' generally available was really the Nokia Communicator (1996) and the first smartphone following the whole phone is a touch screen design concept was the Ericsson R380 (1999) But I completely agree that the article is pretty amazing in its forecasts.

thisisit 9y ago

> At the other end is Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is "a pipe dream driven by greed." Well, Intel never really made a mark in the smartphone era too. Atom processors were a dud.

hashkb 9y ago

Personal flying machines: inevitable necessity or luxury?

thisisit 9y ago
Self driving flying electric cars - inevitable or pipe dream?
- ccozan 9y ago
  Well, I would say, the mother of all mobility market!
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Driven by greedy descent!

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

Doesn't these two statements describe best how Apple and Intel succeeded or failed in mobile? Apple: "[..] John Sculley, the chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., who says these personal communicators could be 'the mother of all markets.'" Intel: "[..] Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, [..] He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is 'a pipe dream driven by greed.'"

gumby 9y ago

On one hand, this is, as others have noted in this comment page, astonishingly prescient. On the other hand, Andrew Seybold was right in that it took 15 years for the iPhone to arrive. There was one "island of stability" with the amazing Palm & Psion devices (which weren't really "connected" devices), and then a discontinuous jump to the iPhone and its descendants. A sobering thought on the speed of technology uptake.

mncharity 9y ago
In the early 1990's, DEC (Digital?) Cambridge was demoing a tablet prototype, with assorted Moore's law curves suggesting viability in early 2000's. Then there was the wait for a market to gel. When will software development get a screen-replacing HMD? One might manage it with existing parts for under $1k... but absent a demonstrated market, no one is bothering to build it. So maybe next year. Maybe more capable systems happen first, because some "companies will pay $10k for this" has a clearer market story. Market prediction is hard. As is some tech path prediction. But some tech changes are more predictable, and when those intersect clear and funded needs... some forms of prescience seem less hard than others.