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Quotes from 1992

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Re: Quotes from 1992

#11

Post by scoutt »

simonh wrote: post #2

>On big things failing to scale down: It occurs to me that the same applied in the transition to mobile. Microsoft was obsessed with making hand-helds and phones into little PCs, keyboard and all. It actually required a radically new interaction model and interface technology to unlock the potential of the form factor.

"Big computers and little computers are completely different beasts"

Are we living in a period in which many things seems to be going backwards? With ARM trying to go into servers/desktop, or the (somewhat) failed attempts to bring the tablet/phone interface to PC (Ubuntu and/or ugly full-screen-only apps)?

Re: Quotes from 1992

#12

Post by renholder »

>And the old blood is getting tired - tired of failing in some cases or just tired of working so hard and now ready to enjoy life.

I think that this is, perhaps, the most apt quote that will live-on in a state of permanence throughout the generations.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#14

Post by bhouston »

Robert X. Cringely is often incredibly observant and accurate. That is why his writing stands the test of time because he saw things accurately and wasn't just a hype pedeler or mindless trend follower. I feel he doesn't get enough credit for that.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#15

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rbanffy wrote: post #7
ForHackernews wrote: post #4

... has this person never checked out an ebook from their local library? That Adobe DRM is the industry state-of-the-art.

The more punishing the process of getting shared access to the book, the more units it'll sell. At least, that seems to be what publishers believe in.

In USA you have rights to format shift, so can libraries just 'rip' books in to an open format and lend those versions as long as they internally reserve a paper copy?

Re: Quotes from 1992

#16

Post by rbanffy »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #15
rbanffy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more punishing the process of getting shared access to the book, the more units it'll sell. At least, that seems to be what publishers believe in.

In USA you have rights to format shift, so can libraries just 'rip' books in to an open format and lend those versions as long as they internally reserve a paper copy?

You can change formats, but they can't lend more than a single copy at any given time or they will be violating copyright (and making more copies of a book than they actually have).

Re: Quotes from 1992

#17

Post by simonh »

ilamont wrote: post #8

On the value of limiting yourself to standards: ...which was why the idea of 100 percent IBM compatibility took so long to be accepted. "Why be compatible when you could be better?" the smart guys asked on their way to bankruptcy court. It sounds a bit like a jab at Apple (or maybe even NeXT, which I believe was struggling in 1992 with its hardware releases). AFAIK neither company ever went bankrupt. Or was it referr…

There were tons of almost-PC-compatible manufacturers back then, selling their proprietary very slightly better, but incompatible systems. They'd have a slightly faster but incompatible bus system, slightly higher capacity floppy disks with a custom format, a proprietary interface that was quicker but only worked with their own printers, a higher resolution display or with more colours but which required special software to take advantage of it.

The Unix workstation market that NeXT, Sun and SGI competed in was a bit different and didn't really overlap much with the PC market.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#19

Post by jonstewart »

I obsessively read I, Cringely when I was in college in the late 90s. It was the Stratechery of its time, and taught me an immense amount about the tech business.

Re: Quotes from 1992

#20

Post by avian »

simonh wrote: post #2

>On big things failing to scale down: It occurs to me that the same applied in the transition to mobile. Microsoft was obsessed with making hand-helds and phones into little PCs, keyboard and all. It actually required a radically new interaction model and interface technology to unlock the potential of the form factor.

Funny how these days it's the inverse, isn't it? Everyone, including Microsoft with Windows 10, seems to be obsessed with making PCs into large hand-helds and phones as far as user interfaces are concerned.
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