Personal What?

There's really not a lot of computing in personal computers nowadays.

Heck, even around this house, most of our so called "computer use" is just email and web browsing. If it weren't for my techy browsing, most of that would be looking up things like "Whatever happened to..(insert favorite 50's or 60's TV/movie personality)?". Our computers function mostly as information appliances and a better alternative to leaving messages on an answering machine. Oh, and as music thieves. Can't forget that.

Is it any wonder that years back so many people couldn't imagine why anyone would want a personal computer at home? Who could have imagined Google, and more importantly the vast ocean of information that Google can serve up to us? Perhaps email was a little easier to see as desirable, but email by itself wouldn't have been enough.

Computers were, well, computers. They calculated things. Multiplied numbers. Added them up, did complex manipulations and spit back answers. Sure, great for business and scientists, but why would Mom ever want one?

Remember Ken Olsen (DEC) disparaging personal computers? Ken himself says that's not true, that he was quoted out of context, but I know he's fibbing a little: back in the early 80's a friend managed the little computer section of Radio Shack in Waltham MA. He told me that Ken would stop in now and then for various things, and that he definitely had a dismissive attitude toward the "personal computers" my friend was hawking. Maybe he was misquoted a bit, but he definitely couldn't see what these little toys would become.

Ken saw a different technology than what actually came to be.

Nowadays, Microsoft is apparently wondering how techy its customers are: "Tech Terms Baffle Most U.S. Adults" sums up a Harris poll they commissioned. Does it surprise you that "Seventy one percent have never heard of Really Simple Syndication (RSS)"? Of course not: it's not part of most people's lives yet, and won't be until they start using IE7. If your computer use is email and browsing, and your browser doesn't comprehend RSS, why would you know what it is?

But who knows what the future will bring? Just as no one could have predicted that folks watching an old movie on TV would fire up their computers to look up whether an actor is still alive or to settle an argument as to the nutritional content of a Big Mac, there may yet be tasks that will become common for "computers".

Not that any of it is likely to have much "computing" in it.

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