8 ms·

In 1981, I received a computer as a birthday gift at the young age of 13. Likely the first micro-computer in my small California town. When I took it to my Juni

In 1981, I received a computer as a birthday gift at the young age of 13. Likely the first micro-computer in my small California town. When I took it to my Junior High science fair people were like stunned by a kid with a computer. When you turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing cursor wait for you to program in BASIC. The next year, a successful local business person asked me, if I thought in the future most people would have computers. I said yes. They replied they didn’t think that would ever happen. And they didn’t see, the need for it in their business, even after seeing VisiCalc. In less than 5 years, they had computers in thier business for Lotus123. And not long after, they had computers in their home. I have seen this pattern repeat many times. I have also seen many branches of computer tech die (amiga, os/2, palm….) But from my point of view “figure out what it’s for” is the ultimate computer hackers playground. And perhaps Vision Pro will be the first headset “worth criticizing” regardless of its success.

adamredwoods 3y ago
I feel the computer revolution was seen by many. The Vision Pro won't be nearly as explosive, if at all. It's essentially an interface for personal electronic space, and that space is being explored by hackers every where with all kinds of devices. So 'figure out what its for' is being explored by many, and doesn't have to be exclusive to Apple devices.
tailspin2019 3y ago
> When you turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing cursor wait for you to program in BASIC. > from my point of view “figure out what it’s for” is the ultimate computer hackers playground I don't have much to add to this fantastic comment.
- wil421 3y ago
  My father in law was in the construction business during this time at a company building bridge spans. A supplier gave them 5 Apple IIs as a bonus for buying so much product. The owner exclaimed, throw them out computers are a fad! To calculate the bridge spans requirements it took 3 guys a 3-5 days to do the calculations, drafting the spans, and double checking everything. My father in law opened the book on basic and saw the math it could do. He wrote a very basic program to take the inputs and do the math. It took the computer less than an hour to return the results. Who knows that the future brings but I’ll be optimistic.
  - bushbaba 3y ago
    You could argue the computer was an extension of those human done reports. The iPhone moving the business reports from desk to be mobile as you go. VR on the other hand is entirely new paradigm. However VR will find its way into a lot of “pro” industries. VR interior design, VR architecture, VR manufacturing line design. There’s tons of usecases.
  - losteric 3y ago
    I think the transitions from punch cards to CLIs, to GUI/mouse interfaces, then to touch interfaces, are more apt metaphors when considering the impact of VR. Touch found it's place as the interface for small-form devices. I'm pretty sure VR is the interface for gaming (with other niche applications). It will be wildly popular, probably a headset in every house within 20 years, I just suspect it will be doing what we already expect - gaming, visualizing chemical reactions, architecture, etc... things we already do in 2d, made just a bit more convenient in 3d with spatial controllers.
    - brandall10 3y ago
      My first internship was at a biology research startup back in ‘96. My supervisor, the head of R&D, had an SGI w/ 3d goggles and a glove and would spend hours in front of it manipulating virtual molecules. He would talk about his days as a PhD student at Stanford in the early 70s working with punch cards and the progress of computing up until that time just over 20 years later… and thought that maybe in 10 years, when his rig that cost about $100k would be cheap enough for the average consumer, it would be the next step in personal computing.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      what about the idea that the headset is just a crutch. It seems the UIs shown eye and hand tracking are only tied to the goggles as demonstration to get the tools in developers hands.
macNchz 3y ago
I feel much the same way about having been given my own computer with internet when I was about the same age in the late 90s. Following developments in VR/AR for a while, I've felt like we've been in a "business computers before spreadsheets", "home computers before the internet", "mp3 players before the iPod", "PDAs before the iPhone" sort of period, wondering if we'd see a sea change platform emerge. I generally have a low tolerance for hype, but I'm excited about the potential here. Can't wait to experiment with developing software for it!
- fumar 3y ago
  Perhaps it is not the next iPhone but the next Mac. It is a better at home or at work general computing device. I am a cynic and I see it as the next iPad.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Or it may be the next TV. You sitting on your couch as virtual events and shows happen around you.
moonchrome 3y ago
3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me.
- fzzzy 3y ago
  The walled garden is much much vaster than anything we had in the 80s.
  - anamexis 3y ago
    And $3.5K is less than a computer would have cost in 1981, adjusted for inflation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- scarface_74 3y ago
  My first computer (bought my parents) in 1986 was an enhanced 128K Apple //e with Duo disk drives and green screen monitor and a dot matrix printer. It was about $3K in all in 1986 dollars. My second computer I got for a graduation gift was a Mac LCII with 10MB RAM with a 512x384 12 inch monitor a LaserWriter LS printer, an Apple //e daughter card, a 5-1/4 inch drive for the card and a copy of SoftPC. It was $4000 - in 1992. People use to spend a lot more on computers back in the day. Both of my computers were hackers playgrounds for me.
  - skeeter2020 3y ago
    Your computers were tools for building... anything, and the manufacturers (especially Apple back then) actually educated, promoted and rewarded amazing things. This is a consumer device tightly coupled to the most restrictive ecosystem we've ever seen. Doesn't seem like a hackers' playground.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
NovaDudely 3y ago
This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere - sometimes simply due to being out maneuvered business wise. Bill Gates once said that in some ways Microsoft was lucky to be as succesful as they where, that they had compititors that had better products but to Microsofts luck, could never get a foothold in the market. Maybe Apple Vision is the future but it could also just end up as another path not taken on the trash heap of history. Time will tell.
- _Tomas 3y ago
  >This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere Survivor bias is real, but the interesting failures (in comparison to VR) are things like 3D TV. 3D TV has a very weak effect, the 3D effect is basically dismissed after a while, after you get immersed in the actual content. A bit like watching a (good) silent movie, at first it's jarring, but after an hour you don't notice it anymore. On the other hand, because VR is so immersive, the effects on the brain are quantifiable, it is fundamentally different than all other forms of media. You can permanently change your brain with VR in ways that are literally impossible with letterbox media. It can change your brain, in a way that no technology has ever been able to before ('Strategic modification of Bayesian priors' if you're into the science). That kind of thing is why VR is a guaranteed success, it's not just about the fact that movies and entertainment and games will get to a new level, but the psychological possibilities for actually modifying the self with VR are going to ensure we all have headsets in a decade. VR is immersive to a degree that it tricks your brain completely. It can activate powerful biological mechanisms that cannot be done in other digital/scaleable ways. For example, there's a company in Spain called Virtual Bodyworks, founded by the VR researcher Mel Slater, which can affect your implicit bias with body swaps performed in VR. This is genuine selective neural net-surgery, done in a way that cannot be replicated outside of VR. The company I work at has a smoking-cessation VR app, takes 5 minutes for some people to go from decades of unbroken addiction/40 smokes a day/first smoke within 5 minutes of waking, to not even being able to think about smoking. There is no way to do what we do with a phone app or even a 3DTV, it requires VR. That kind of software is going to be the reason VR will take off, it's capable of changing the mind in ways we can't imagine at the moment. Not to mention that spatial computing is the 'final form' of human machine interaction, plenty of research on that.
ksec 3y ago
>I have seen this pattern repeat many times. I saw Personal Computer, PDA / SmartPhone and Tablet and I never doubted their success as a product category. But Vision Pro, or AR / MR is the first one I am joining that camp. I am sure It will do well in many areas, I just dont see it carry the same weight as PC, or Smartphone.
tootie 3y ago
Like 5 years ago I worked at a digital agency that received a bunch of devices from different manufacturers. AR, VR, spatial audio, directional audio, holographic displays and were given a sort of blank check to make some cool experiences. We never really got past the novelty factor. Obviously there may be some cleverer folk in the world than we had at the time, but I came away thinking these would never really get mainstream acceptance for anything besides gaming. I also came away realizing that mouse and keyboard are really just amazingly efficient and 2d screens are perfectly fine.

adamredwoods 3y ago

I feel the computer revolution was seen by many. The Vision Pro won't be nearly as explosive, if at all. It's essentially an interface for personal electronic space, and that space is being explored by hackers every where with all kinds of devices. So 'figure out what its for' is being explored by many, and doesn't have to be exclusive to Apple devices.

tailspin2019 3y ago

> When you turned on the computer, all you got was a flashing cursor wait for you to program in BASIC. > from my point of view “figure out what it’s for” is the ultimate computer hackers playground I don't have much to add to this fantastic comment.

wil421 3y ago
My father in law was in the construction business during this time at a company building bridge spans. A supplier gave them 5 Apple IIs as a bonus for buying so much product. The owner exclaimed, throw them out computers are a fad! To calculate the bridge spans requirements it took 3 guys a 3-5 days to do the calculations, drafting the spans, and double checking everything. My father in law opened the book on basic and saw the math it could do. He wrote a very basic program to take the inputs and do the math. It took the computer less than an hour to return the results. Who knows that the future brings but I’ll be optimistic.
- bushbaba 3y ago
  You could argue the computer was an extension of those human done reports. The iPhone moving the business reports from desk to be mobile as you go. VR on the other hand is entirely new paradigm. However VR will find its way into a lot of “pro” industries. VR interior design, VR architecture, VR manufacturing line design. There’s tons of usecases.
- losteric 3y ago
  I think the transitions from punch cards to CLIs, to GUI/mouse interfaces, then to touch interfaces, are more apt metaphors when considering the impact of VR. Touch found it's place as the interface for small-form devices. I'm pretty sure VR is the interface for gaming (with other niche applications). It will be wildly popular, probably a headset in every house within 20 years, I just suspect it will be doing what we already expect - gaming, visualizing chemical reactions, architecture, etc... things we already do in 2d, made just a bit more convenient in 3d with spatial controllers.
  - brandall10 3y ago
    My first internship was at a biology research startup back in ‘96. My supervisor, the head of R&D, had an SGI w/ 3d goggles and a glove and would spend hours in front of it manipulating virtual molecules. He would talk about his days as a PhD student at Stanford in the early 70s working with punch cards and the progress of computing up until that time just over 20 years later… and thought that maybe in 10 years, when his rig that cost about $100k would be cheap enough for the average consumer, it would be the next step in personal computing.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    what about the idea that the headset is just a crutch. It seems the UIs shown eye and hand tracking are only tied to the goggles as demonstration to get the tools in developers hands.

macNchz 3y ago

I feel much the same way about having been given my own computer with internet when I was about the same age in the late 90s. Following developments in VR/AR for a while, I've felt like we've been in a "business computers before spreadsheets", "home computers before the internet", "mp3 players before the iPod", "PDAs before the iPhone" sort of period, wondering if we'd see a sea change platform emerge. I generally have a low tolerance for hype, but I'm excited about the potential here. Can't wait to experiment with developing software for it!

fumar 3y ago
Perhaps it is not the next iPhone but the next Mac. It is a better at home or at work general computing device. I am a cynic and I see it as the next iPad.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Or it may be the next TV. You sitting on your couch as virtual events and shows happen around you.

moonchrome 3y ago

3.5k device that's locked down into some iOS like Apple walled garden doesn't sound like backers playground to me.

fzzzy 3y ago
The walled garden is much much vaster than anything we had in the 80s.
- anamexis 3y ago
  And $3.5K is less than a computer would have cost in 1981, adjusted for inflation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
scarface_74 3y ago
My first computer (bought my parents) in 1986 was an enhanced 128K Apple //e with Duo disk drives and green screen monitor and a dot matrix printer. It was about $3K in all in 1986 dollars. My second computer I got for a graduation gift was a Mac LCII with 10MB RAM with a 512x384 12 inch monitor a LaserWriter LS printer, an Apple //e daughter card, a 5-1/4 inch drive for the card and a copy of SoftPC. It was $4000 - in 1992. People use to spend a lot more on computers back in the day. Both of my computers were hackers playgrounds for me.
- skeeter2020 3y ago
  Your computers were tools for building... anything, and the manufacturers (especially Apple back then) actually educated, promoted and rewarded amazing things. This is a consumer device tightly coupled to the most restrictive ecosystem we've ever seen. Doesn't seem like a hackers' playground.
  - scarface_74 3y ago

NovaDudely 3y ago

This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere - sometimes simply due to being out maneuvered business wise. Bill Gates once said that in some ways Microsoft was lucky to be as succesful as they where, that they had compititors that had better products but to Microsofts luck, could never get a foothold in the market. Maybe Apple Vision is the future but it could also just end up as another path not taken on the trash heap of history. Time will tell.

_Tomas 3y ago
>This is all true but it can be a little bit of survivor ship bias at play. Look at all the technology conferences over the last 40 years and for the most part you will see a grave yard of tens of thousand of ideas that looks promising but ended up going nowhere Survivor bias is real, but the interesting failures (in comparison to VR) are things like 3D TV. 3D TV has a very weak effect, the 3D effect is basically dismissed after a while, after you get immersed in the actual content. A bit like watching a (good) silent movie, at first it's jarring, but after an hour you don't notice it anymore. On the other hand, because VR is so immersive, the effects on the brain are quantifiable, it is fundamentally different than all other forms of media. You can permanently change your brain with VR in ways that are literally impossible with letterbox media. It can change your brain, in a way that no technology has ever been able to before ('Strategic modification of Bayesian priors' if you're into the science). That kind of thing is why VR is a guaranteed success, it's not just about the fact that movies and entertainment and games will get to a new level, but the psychological possibilities for actually modifying the self with VR are going to ensure we all have headsets in a decade. VR is immersive to a degree that it tricks your brain completely. It can activate powerful biological mechanisms that cannot be done in other digital/scaleable ways. For example, there's a company in Spain called Virtual Bodyworks, founded by the VR researcher Mel Slater, which can affect your implicit bias with body swaps performed in VR. This is genuine selective neural net-surgery, done in a way that cannot be replicated outside of VR. The company I work at has a smoking-cessation VR app, takes 5 minutes for some people to go from decades of unbroken addiction/40 smokes a day/first smoke within 5 minutes of waking, to not even being able to think about smoking. There is no way to do what we do with a phone app or even a 3DTV, it requires VR. That kind of software is going to be the reason VR will take off, it's capable of changing the mind in ways we can't imagine at the moment. Not to mention that spatial computing is the 'final form' of human machine interaction, plenty of research on that.

ksec 3y ago

>I have seen this pattern repeat many times. I saw Personal Computer, PDA / SmartPhone and Tablet and I never doubted their success as a product category. But Vision Pro, or AR / MR is the first one I am joining that camp. I am sure It will do well in many areas, I just dont see it carry the same weight as PC, or Smartphone.

tootie 3y ago

Like 5 years ago I worked at a digital agency that received a bunch of devices from different manufacturers. AR, VR, spatial audio, directional audio, holographic displays and were given a sort of blank check to make some cool experiences. We never really got past the novelty factor. Obviously there may be some cleverer folk in the world than we had at the time, but I came away thinking these would never really get mainstream acceptance for anything besides gaming. I also came away realizing that mouse and keyboard are really just amazingly efficient and 2d screens are perfectly fine.