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The Useful Personal Computer

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21–30 of 44 posts

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#21
In the 60s, my dad told me that the greatest coming inventions would be:

1. a TV you could hang on the wall like a picture

2. a typewriter that would enable correcting what you wrote

He was right!

(I remember when my dad was writing a book, my mom spent endless hours retyping the revised manuscripts. It seemed like a hellish task to me. I'm glad that job is gone.)

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#22
post #20

This article really resonates with me. Sometimes I stop and think that in actuality people do very little computing with their devices. If people actually used computers to manage their life, a windows 95 dekstop would already be plenty powerful to run all the necessary software. As always, entertainment and ads are what keeps the treadmill going

I often think this way about my smartphone: what do I need the “smart” for? Maps, messenger, banking app, taking/viewing photos, web browser, listening to audio (music, podcasts, audiobooks), taxi app, calendar/reminders. Seems so little… How old of a hardware could support my needs?

> taking/viewing photos

Camera and screen quality are often what the new generation of a phone is sold on.

For everything else, yeah if you're not watching videos or gaming then you probably don't need a top-end model.

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "[...] every marketer intuited that a home computer would be used for storing recipes. It never happened." Storing recipes "never happened"? Rubbish! Even famous cook Casey Ryback used his Apple Newton to store recipes, as evidenced in the 1995 documentary Under Siege 2 [1]. 1. [ https://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=23 ]

Yeah easy to say that but that is because they are the elite. They have a newton, do you? I don't! Time for Newton 2, I mean they are doing iPod sock 2 so why not Newton 2.

I still have my Newton but I wasn't, nor am I, elite.

I didn't store recipes on it, though.

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah easy to say that but that is because they are the elite. They have a newton, do you? I don't! Time for Newton 2, I mean they are doing iPod sock 2 so why not Newton 2.

I still have my Newton but I wasn't, nor am I, elite. I didn't store recipes on it, though.

I would love to see a new Newton with the same spirit of innovation but current tech. Current phones are so boring. No innovation, just slow evolution.

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#25
post #22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think this way about my smartphone: what do I need the “smart” for? Maps, messenger, banking app, taking/viewing photos, web browser, listening to audio (music, podcasts, audiobooks), taxi app, calendar/reminders. Seems so little… How old of a hardware could support my needs?

> taking/viewing photos Camera and screen quality are often what the new generation of a phone is sold on. For everything else, yeah if you're not watching videos or gaming then you probably don't need a top-end model.

> Camera

Whenever I see this fact, I don't doubt it, but it reminds me of how weird and out of touch I am. The Camera is probably one of my least used phone feature. My lens got a crack across it a few years ago and I have no idea how long I went before even noticing it. It's never even occurred to me to care about how "good" my phone's cameras are. For those rare times I need to take a picture of something, my 8 year old phone camera is good enough. I really don't feel I need more pixels.

It's always so strange to learn how important that feature is to normal people.

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have my Newton but I wasn't, nor am I, elite. I didn't store recipes on it, though.

I would love to see a new Newton with the same spirit of innovation but current tech. Current phones are so boring. No innovation, just slow evolution.

It really was way ahead of its time. I remember the handwriting recognition being excellent for the time, too. Meanwhile Palm forced its users to write each letter one at a time in a tiny box and requiring specific sequencing of each stroke too.

Newton had a modem module you could plug in and third parties had written web browsers for it, it basically was the first smart phone just without the phone.

Trying to imagine that level of innovation, but starting from present day tech, is very interesting.

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#28
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I store recipes on my home computer! Having a portable handheld terminal that can view the recipes makes it much more practical than it would have been in the 80s.

What recipe storing app do you use?

I use AnyList for recipes, grocery/shopping lists and checklists. It’s a great app!

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#29
post #22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think this way about my smartphone: what do I need the “smart” for? Maps, messenger, banking app, taking/viewing photos, web browser, listening to audio (music, podcasts, audiobooks), taxi app, calendar/reminders. Seems so little… How old of a hardware could support my needs?

> taking/viewing photos Camera and screen quality are often what the new generation of a phone is sold on. For everything else, yeah if you're not watching videos or gaming then you probably don't need a top-end model.

[dead]

Re: The Useful Personal Computer

#30
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I store recipes on my home computer! Having a portable handheld terminal that can view the recipes makes it much more practical than it would have been in the 80s.

What recipe storing app do you use?

I keep my bread recipes in Google Keep on my phone. It's extremely useful, since the phone takes up much less room on the counter than the laptop does.
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