Past and Future
Created | Updated Jan 31, 2002
When I sat down at my computer to start working with Shazz on the first Post, it took a little while to boot it up.
An old Pentium 75, running at a surprising 75mHz with a whopping 24Mb of RAM. A video card with 1MB of memory hooked into a 15inch monitor capable of 640x400 at 256 colours. All dialling in through a 33.3bps modem. Top notch stuff. The average computer then wasn't much better. A good processor two years ago was a Pentium II, running around 250mHz with 64mB of RAM. Monitors were definitely better though, 15 or 17 inch screens put into graphics cards with 8 or 16MB of memory capable of 16 or 32 bit colour. The average modem then was still 33.3bps though.
h2g2 was slightly different as well, having only one skin and all.
Things have progressed somewhat since then. An off-the-shelf home computer these days come with a 1gHz processor and 128 or 256MB of RAM. Graphics cards with 32 or 64MB built in memory. Monitors still usually come in the 15 or 17 inch varieties. Needless to say 56.6k internal modems are standard. It's also become easier and cheaper to get a computer made to your own specifications. Processors are available at 1.8gHz and memory chips come in 512MB. Graphics cards with 128MB onboard memory and full 3D support. Flat screen 17inch monitors with crystal sharp resolution. ISDN and cable modems. USB ports have made an appearance among a whole range of optional accessories. Full surround sound systems, cordless keyboards and cordless optical rodents. DVD players and CD Re-writers. Portable storage devices so small they are sold as key rings. Computers have moved out of the realms of geeks and into that of the general home user. In the last two years PCs really have become Home computers.
So that's how things have progressed since the Post started just over two years ago. Most of what has happened has, at one time or another, been thought up in the realms of the Science Fiction (SF) writers. SF rather than Fantasy is based on what is actually possible. Years ago writers dreamt of what may happen and what might be if technology was pushed in just such a way. Asimov is probably the best known of the SF writers and is often referred to as the 'Father of Robots'. Some of his visions have already come true. Science, in a way, does mimic Science Fiction, although it usually has its own slant. Nothing that we see in the shops is exactly as it was in the books or even in the minds of the writers. The closest thing that may have been was h2g2. Unfortunately, though, until the handheld varieties emerge when the BBC are allowed to, then it shall remain an almost like.
But what can we expect in the next two years of the Post and h2g2? What else is in SF books that we might yet see? Some of the things that have been in development at laboratories, such as BTs' Martlesham Heath, are computers designed to be worn on arms. A sort of gauntlet up to the elbow, folding out to give a small screen and keyboard. Almost like a very narrow laptop. Built in are fully working modems allowing full web access. Hard drives capable of storing reasonably large amounts of data. Network cards with retractable cords. The idea is that when you sit down at a work station you merely pull out the cord and plug your arm in, giving instant access to personal files and data stored on your arm rather than on a central server. How far along is this though, well even the prototype had a full colour screen and qwerty keyboard.
Miniature projection units built into glasses, projecting your computer desktop onto the lens completely removing the need for a monitor, real space saving. Almost straight out of a James Bond movie. Ideas are also in development to do away with the glasses altogether and project the image directly onto the retina.
Fabric is being developed that has fibres and circuits woven into the weft. Computers literally built into the cloth, shirts and jackets with processing power. Computers that we wear, almost like a prop from a Back To The Future film. You can just picture Michael J Fox in his jacket that automatically resizes and dries itself.
Miniature robots capable of traversing arteries and clearing blood clots from within with no need for surgery. Are these likely to become the norm on long distance economy air flights? A sort of running joke along with the in-flight catering, the almost plastic looking flight attendants and the little bags of peanuts that are near impossible to open without spraying everyone in the adjacent seats with the contents? Circuit implants, building processors directly into the body. Or even tattoos with the dye made from a metallic base, capable of safely conducting current across the skin itself like those in KW Jeters' 'Farewell Horizontal'?
A progress and hopefully culmination in Adult Stem Cell Technology, rebuilding broken bodies from their own treated bone marrow. Or even a further progression where we start to improve ourselves at a genetic level. Will we be able to start building the computers into our own physical makeup?
Most of that seems improbable or impractical, but then not many generations ago the concept of the Internet itself was laughable. Who knows, within another few generations we may start looking more like Borg than Kirk, more technological and better dressed - if a tad grey and scary.
