Re: Death Sentence for the Hubble?
From: Jeff Findley (jeff.findley_at_ugs.nojunk.com)
Date: 03/12/05
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Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 09:06:06 -0500
"Eric Chomko" <echomko_at_@polaris.umuc.edu> wrote in message
news:d0tstb$463$3@news.ums.edu...
> Jeff Findley (jeff.findley@ugs.nojunk.com) wrote:
> : Yesterday's mainframes are similar to today's servers, but yesterday's
> : terminals are not similar to today's PC. There is a very good reason
that
> : we called them DUMB terminals. They could do absolutely nothing without
> : being connected to a mainframe. The only memory they had was screen
memory.
>
> A PC without the Internet is dumb. You miss that. Sure we can do a lot
> more with a PC than we can with a dumb terminal, but the analogy still
> holds (i.e. client/server).
This is absolute b.s. The new laptop I bought my wife has Microsoft Office
2003 Professional edition installed on it (which made the cost of the latop
jump 50% in and of itself). She's doing lots of work on that machine,
despite the fact that it's never been connected to the Internet or to *any*
computer network.
To print, you simply attach the printer directly to the laptop. To share
files, you burn them on a CD-R or CD-RW using the laptop's drive and use the
"sneakernet" for file transfers.
> : Personal computers today are "real" computers. You can use them to do
> : meaningful work without being connected to a server.
>
> But you cannot have the Internet without getting on-line. Sure PCs are
> superior to dumb terminals, but you still need to log-on like you did with
> mainframes and terminals.
Not everyone needs the Internet to do "real work" on their PC. Just because
web browsers, email, and instant messaging are considered the latest
"killer apps" doesn't mean that everyone needs to run those apps to get
their job done.
Jeff
-- Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.
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