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The article is right if you look at computers as standalone devices. The problem is, they aren't standalone devices for most people. Even prior to the popularit

by II2II 4y ago

The article is right if you look at computers as standalone devices. The problem is, they aren't standalone devices for most people. Even prior to the popularity of the Internet, people exchanged documents. With the rise of the Internet, people started consuming more and from more sources. Interoperability became more important, and other people started defining standards that were well beyond the capabilities of 8-bit micros. The C64, among others, were doomed. (For what it's worth, I was encountering people who used 8-bit micros well into the late 90's. They were happy with what they had, but they were also very much using their computers in isolation.)

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
They were cheap toys. That's all. They were usefully educational if you wanted to understand the internals, but 95% of the time they were for entertainment. Modern computing uses the same hardware principles, expanded and speeded up by many orders of magnitude. But a hugely bigger set of affordances. Mass storage just works without floppy swapping or cassette saving, data and applications are distributed, there's pocket as well as desktop access, and cameras, sound, and video are a given. And that's just the hardware. It's like comparing a high speed rail network to a skateboard.
- II2II 4y ago
  Yet high speed rail networks are practically useless for transportation within one's community (or even within most cities). In those cases, modes of transportation such as walking, skateboarding, cycling, driving are more effective. Using a C64 or C128 today would be kinda silly, but that wasn't the case in the late 1980's through mid-1990's. They were fine for many smaller tasks, and a great deal better than the alternatives if you could not afford a "real computer". Even as a glorified typewriter, a C64 was orders of magnitude better than an actual typewriter. Even as a calculator, a C64 was order of magnitude better than an actual calculator. Of course cost is the deciding factor here because computers aren't the same as transportation networks. Aside from cost high end computer is going to be better than a high end one in every case. It has physics working for it, rather than against it. Yet cost of replacement is still a factor.

by II2II 4y ago

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

They were cheap toys. That's all. They were usefully educational if you wanted to understand the internals, but 95% of the time they were for entertainment. Modern computing uses the same hardware principles, expanded and speeded up by many orders of magnitude. But a hugely bigger set of affordances. Mass storage just works without floppy swapping or cassette saving, data and applications are distributed, there's pocket as well as desktop access, and cameras, sound, and video are a given. And that's just the hardware. It's like comparing a high speed rail network to a skateboard.

II2II 4y ago
Yet high speed rail networks are practically useless for transportation within one's community (or even within most cities). In those cases, modes of transportation such as walking, skateboarding, cycling, driving are more effective. Using a C64 or C128 today would be kinda silly, but that wasn't the case in the late 1980's through mid-1990's. They were fine for many smaller tasks, and a great deal better than the alternatives if you could not afford a "real computer". Even as a glorified typewriter, a C64 was orders of magnitude better than an actual typewriter. Even as a calculator, a C64 was order of magnitude better than an actual calculator. Of course cost is the deciding factor here because computers aren't the same as transportation networks. Aside from cost high end computer is going to be better than a high end one in every case. It has physics working for it, rather than against it. Yet cost of replacement is still a factor.