Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little.
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little.
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
Most people believe that if you go in and try to micromanage a forest, it is possible to destroy the very thing that makes it a unique and special place. That's just as true of the Net.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticize it.
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
In all large corporations, there is a pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun with a computer on company time. Networks help alleviate that fear.
Today, you always know whether you are on the Internet or on your PC's hard drive. Tomorrow, you will not care and may not even know.
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.