Future?

Sometimes writing this is really easy and everything falls into place.  The topic really grabs me and the words flow and I’m off and typing.

Other times, nothing.  Can’t find a topic and no words to be found.  Those are usually the times when I have no free time.  No time to sit at the Apple and work or play.

Today is kind of weird because I didn’t have time to fire up the Apple, but I have a topic and the words are flowing.

At work I was thinking about yesterday’s post and the comparisons I made.  What would happen if you took today’s technology and created a computer without getting bogged down with yesterday’s computers?

It seems like most of today’s computers get hung up on backwards compatibility.  Make the next computer stand on its own.  Plan ahead, not backwards.  Make it really expandable.

One of the things that made the Apple II so popular was the ability to plug in cards to expand your system.  The Macintosh II had NuBus technology that as I understand it allowed multiple processors to work together.

What if the new computer was truly modular?  The basic system would be a case with an expansion board.  Pretty much everything else would be a module you could plug in, including the processor or processors.  Every module would have some way of identifying itself to the system.  Just plug it in and the system would know what it was.  How cool would it be if you need a faster machine you could just swap out a module or maybe just add another and have them work together?

When you are designing this system, use the best ideas you can, don’t worry about the older technology, if it gets in the way.  Plan for big and fast, that will get bigger and faster.  Today, machines are starting towards 64 bit system, so maybe skip ahead to 128 bit or 256 bit.

Then, when all is said and done create the operating system and other software accordingly.  Don’t try to make the old software work where it shouldn’t.  If a software vendor wants their software to run on this machine, they could either write it for this machine or write an emulator that could run it.

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