Author: Albert Silver
Date: 14:52:24 05/05/99
Go up one level in this thread
On May 04, 1999 at 12:41:32, Steve Lopez wrote:
>On May 04, 1999 at 10:49:27, Steven Schwartz wrote:
>
>>Perhaps you recall the TASC 128K, 512K, and 1 Meg TASC Chess Machines,
>>first introduced in 1991.
>
>Yes, we used to sell them. I installed a couple of them myself.
>
>>
>>These were cards that needed to be implanted in the expansion slots of PCs.
>>And, back then, customers were much less savvy than they are now about
>>personal computers.
>
>I disagree strongly with the second sentence. The simpler they make computers,
>the simpler they make computer users. I talk to people daily who have *no* idea
>how to copy a file using Windows 95/98 and don't feel that they should have to
>learn how. I also talk to a large number of people who get themselves in a
>lather because they don't feel they should have to read a manual.
I have a friend who bought a fancy laptop who is like that. I even bought him
one of those "Windows 95/98 for Idiots" books but to no avail. He insists on
figuring everything out for himself and gets himself in a bind all the time. I
have a technician friend who received a phone call from someone wanting to
access the Internet and asked what needed to be done. He gave the person a
toll-free phone number and told them to ask for their free kit and install it on
their computer. "Computer! You people are all the same! Always trying to sell
something we don't want!", and promptly hung up on my friend's face.
>
>I think that 85%-90% of the purchasers of such a chip/card-based system would
>have little to no trouble getting it installed and operating. But that other
>10%-15% would require support far in excess of what I'm personally prepared to
>give (I'm speaking as an individual here, not as a company representative). I'm
>sure the company would have no problem supporting these folks. All I'm saying is
>that *I* wouldn't want to be the one to do it.
>
>>Yes, support was somewhat more intensive, but not outrageous, and I
>>cannot recall (although recollection gets fuzzier with age) a single
>>situation in which we could not get the customer through the process
>>successfully without bankrupting our toll-free phone budget.
>
>Remember, though, that this was in the old DOS days, when a computer user *had*
>to learn something about his computer, whether he liked it or not. One had to
>learn a certain number of DOS commands just to use the thing. Nowadays when I
>tell someone to "drag and drop" a file from one folder to another, I sometimes
>get responses like "I don't see anything that says 'dragon drop' on my screen".
>I can't imagine having to talk one of these folks through the process of opening
>up their computer and inserting a card.
>
>>If IBM comes to market with a card, they will need to be prepared to
>>continue to improve upon that card with the same vigor that Intel (and
>>others) put into making faster and faster PC chips, because no matter
>>what advantage DB Junior has on the day it is introduced, you can be
>>absolutely certain that PCs will not stop getting faster - until they
>>eventually catch up and exceed the speed of the IBM card.
>
>Which is another reason why I doubt that such a card will be released.
Maybe. According to what I read, an estimated 30 million positions a second
would be attained. It would take quite a bit of multiplying before PCs caught up
with that.
Albert Silver
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