TL 9 microchips?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rupert

As I have no need for that portability, I'm sticking with my desktop, which is much cheaper for the performance I'm getting and has far more storage space (and plenty of room for more drives if I need them).

That's my stance as well. I've been using Mac Minis pretty much since they first came on the market. I have an iPad and an iPhone, but I don't allow either of them to receive or send e-mail; if people have an urgent message they can text me (though even for texting, I find it much easier to send a text from my desktop using a proper keyboard).

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Don't forget Gibson's "three megabytes of hot ram"

It's been a while since I read anything by Gibson, I think. By 'hot,' did he mean stolen, or is it a slang term in-story? (Given time-of-writing, I can see why he'd have thought that 3 Mb was a lot.) Another example, of course, is Bill Gates allegedly claiming in 1981 that '640 kilobytes ought to be enough for anybody.'

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

It's been a while since I read anything by Gibson, I think. By 'hot,' did he mean stolen, or is it a slang term in-story? (Given time-of-writing, I can see why he'd have thought that 3 Mb was a lot.)

To be honest, I only know of it through osmosis. By the time I was reading anything that could be considered a novel, Neuromancer was no longer be current but not yet retro.

And didn't an IBM engineer claim in the 1950s that six (or some other comically small number) of their latest computer would have all the computing power the world would ever need?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by RyanW

To be honest, I only know of it through osmosis. By the time I was reading anything that could be considered a novel, Neuromancer was no longer be current but not yet retro.

And didn't an IBM engineer claim in the 1950s that six (or some other comically small number) of their latest computer would have all the computing power the world would ever need?

So the legend goes, I don't know if it's true or apocryphal.

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's my stance as well. I've been using Mac Minis pretty much since they first came on the market. I have an iPad and an iPhone, but I don't allow either of them to receive or send e-mail; if people have an urgent message they can text me (though even for texting, I find it much easier to send a text from my desktop using a proper keyboard).

I sometimes read this forum on a tablet or a smartphone, but I almost never attempt to post with one, it's more trouble than it's worth unless you trick it out with external keyboards, etc., more-or-less turning it into a desktop, as others have noted on-thread. When I post I usually use my desktop PC. For some purposes it's still superior to either the tablet or smartphone.

But that's also the usual story, one expression of a given tech rarely entirely replaces another, and mainframes, desktops, smartphones, etc. are all expressions of the same basic technology.

We've been hearing for years, for ex, that mainframe computers are a thing of the past...yet they remain an economic/business viable product to manufacture and are the best solution for certain applications. Also, some 'replacements' of mainframes turn out to be networked assemblages of blade servers or the like which more or less approximate a mainframe.

Sometimes it comes down to terminology.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Rupert

From what I can see, the trend in low-mid range laptops is to make them smaller and cheaper (so they're tablets with cruddy keyboards) rather than to increase memory (both storage and RAM).

I keep getting told that 'laptops are replacing desktops', and for general business use they do seem to be, insofar as they're replacing the desktop computer but are still plugging into a desktop's worth of screens, keyboards, mice, etc. so really they're using up a desktop's footprint, but you have the option of using them away from your deck (with a little screen, cramped keyboard, etc.).

As I have no need for that portability, I'm sticking with my desktop, which is much cheaper for the performance I'm getting and has far more storage space (and plenty of room for more drives if I need them).

Sometimes, too, technology does advance...but it isn't visible because other factors mask it. For example: laptop batteries. Today's laptop batteries are substantially better than the equivalent batteries from 20 years ago...yet they have comparable use time.

The reason is that as battery power increased, instead of letting them run the machine longer, designers added more and more features and power-consuming bells and whistles that used up that extra energy that much faster, so your laptop still conks out after similar time.

Same deal with processor power and software. A good percentage of the vast increase in processor power has been eaten up by various forms of software bloat. Faster Internet connections sometimes get used up by adware and the like that eats up the capacity like a hungry badger. (To say nothing of malware...though sometimes the distinction between malware and some supposedly legit stuff looks fuzzy in practice.)

(I've believed for years that website designers and the like ought to be required by their employers to use slower-than-available I-net connections to do their work, as a check on that tendency. Don't give them high-end fiber optic connections, make them do their design work on an average speed connection.)

So in GURPS terms, your TL 9 battery might not behave any differently than a TL8 battery, if the TL9 systems use up energy faster too.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If you're going to write science fiction set in the future, though, you probably have to predict technological progress—and accept the risk of getting it wrong.

But if you're clever, you just specify what a gadget can do and handwave exactly how it does it, using extrapolation of existing scientific principles. If you're doing space opera you can replace the extrapolation with dramatically plausible technobabble.

Giving actual numbers for a gadget, other than basic weights and dimensions, makes it very likely that your predictions will be comically incorrect in just a few decades (but with an infinitesimal chance that you're right and make way more off of patents or stocks than you're ever going to earn from your writing).

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by RyanW

And didn't an IBM engineer claim in the 1950s that six (or some other comically small number) of their latest computer would have all the computing power the world would ever need?

IIRC, the actual quote was "we expected to sell 5 of those" and was followed by "we sold 20"

And it wasn't that they tough their latest computer would have all the computing power the world would ever need, but that for the use they were thinking of, there wasn't need of more at that point.
They did not foresee in how many way computer could be used, or especially personal computer...

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

But if you're clever, you just specify what a gadget can do and handwave exactly how it does it, using extrapolation of existing scientific principles. If you're doing space opera you can replace the extrapolation with dramatically plausible technobabble.

Giving actual numbers for a gadget, other than basic weights and dimensions, makes it very likely that your predictions will be comically incorrect in just a few decades (but with an infinitesimal chance that you're right and make way more off of patents or stocks than you're ever going to earn from your writing).

On the other hand, simple narrative descriptions will often imply actual numbers. See for example Heinlein's Starman Jones, where astrogation problems are entered into a computer by looking up the decimal numbers in a table of decimal to binary conversions and manually entering the binary numbers!

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

On the other hand, simple narrative descriptions will often imply actual numbers. See for example Heinlein's Starman Jones, where astrogation problems are entered into a computer by looking up the decimal numbers in a table of decimal to binary conversions and manually entering the binary numbers!

That was in a setting with strict trade guilds though, so I wonder how much of that was strictly necessary vs a powerful guild protecting its monopoly and its members jobs.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

It's been a while since I read anything by Gibson, I think. By 'hot,' did he mean stolen, or is it a slang term in-story?

Stolen. Case (the protagonist) has some merchandise and is trying to find a fence. The RAM is in "a standard Hitachi pocket computer", so the phrase isn't meant to describe high-performance cutting-edge desirable console cowboy stuff or even a large amount of memory by the standards of the setting.

Originally Posted by Neuromancer (Gibson)

There was nothing in Number 92 but a standard Hitachi pocket computer and a small white styrofoam cooler chest. The cooler contained the remains of three ten-kilo slabs of dry ice carefully wrapped in paper to delay evaporation, and a spun aluminum lab flask. Crouching on the brown temper foam slab that was both floor and bed, Case took Shin’s .22 from his pocket and put it on top of the cooler. Then he took off his jacket. The coffin’s terminal was molded into one concave wall, opposite a panel listing house rules in seven languages. Case took the pink handset from its cradle and punched a Hong Kong number from memory. He let it ring five times, then hung up. His buyer for the three megabytes of hot RAM in the Hitachi wasn’t taking calls.