Predictions for the future

[Mick]

Riverlane are having a go with Deltaflow.OS and, apparently, so are upwards of fifty other companies. Admittedly there’s no Windows type OS (yet) for quantum but it will come eventually as sure as eggs is eggs.

I remember working on an IBM “mainframe” at Lloyd’s Bank in the late 80s. The machine was the size of a house with a basement. IBM expected their customers to write their own OS as they didn’t supply any software with the machine at that time apart from a COBOL compiler. The mainframe couldn’t boot itself it needed the input from a lowly IBM PS/2 model 30 which itself was booted from a 720k 3.5” floppy. How things have changed since then, in 40 years computing has come on leaps and bounds+ so don’t write off any ideas as not happening because they’re very likely to happen.

[[Dimetrodon]]

I was certainly wrong about operating systems, but I still have my doubts of such computers being in the home. I'm used to people overshooting how far we'd come in the future, so I'm probably inadvertently doing the exact opposite.

[david63]

IBM expected their customers to write their own OS

Not a mainframe story but I remember reading that IBM did not believe that PCs would take off and at the most there would only be a few hundred so they didn't consider it in their interest to develop an OS for PCs so they let a young chap called Bill Gates develop it for for them - and the rest is history.

[Mick]

For all their success though I think IBM chose the wrong chipset for the PC, the Intel 8088 was a bit of a dog. The Motorola 6809 was much more powerful and even had some 16 bit internals, a bit of a wow for the time. But, as you say, the rest is history.

[[Dimetrodon]]

Money cant buy happiness, but you might rent it for a couple hours......
So much money and resources have been wasted developing better more efficient ways of killing each other, that we could already be
colonizing Mars, if not the moon, along with permanent space stations.....

I'm still waiting to see if humanity is smart enough to survive it's own intelligence...

It probably won't, as we can never seem to use our intelligence in the best ways, and people at the top always find ways to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.

[Mick]

I’ve just changed my mobile phone account to SIM only which consists of 6gb data + unlimited texts and calls for £8/month which includes a £5 discount as I have my broadband with the same company. Thinking about it it’s now cheaper to have a mobile phone than a landline, who would have thought that 35 years ago? A friend just commented “if it gets any cheaper the phone companies will be paying us just to stay with them”

[[Dimetrodon]]

I don't even have a landline.

[Mick]

Nor do I for over a year.

[[Dimetrodon]]

Nor do I for over a year.

The future is them going away I guess, with the exception of institutions that may need a landline, such as government offices.

[david63]

Landlines in the UK will be no more after 2025 - calls will be by VOIP

[[Dimetrodon]]

In the United States of No Infrastructure, many government buildings still run their services and send information with dial up.

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

I hate smart phones but I finally had to get one because my carrier would no longer support anything less than 4g lte whatever that is.

However, I have not had a land line for at least the 18 years I have lived where I am now.
I got a cell phone when they were still very big and heavy. I still had a pager back then as well.

oh well,

robert

[Mick]

Blimey, and Ma Bell was always at the forefront of telephone technology, certainly in the 70s, with touch tone phones and the like, what’s happened?

[[Dimetrodon]]

Blimey, and Ma Bell was always at the forefront of telephone technology, certainly in the 70s, with touch tone phones and the like, what’s happened?

A monopoly breakup in the 1980s interestingly enough broke up their control over the market, allowing other innovators to have a shot in the telecommunications market.

[[Dimetrodon]]

I hate smart phones but I finally had to get one because my carrier would no longer support anything less than 4g lte whatever that is.

I don't think it's the smart phones that are the problem. People need to get the hell off social media and delete those apps from their phones.