Happy Anniversary!

[Daryn]

Today is the anniversary of a couple of notable items. First, the Intel 4004 Processor is 40 years old today. The 16 pin processor had a 4-bit bus and ran at 740kHz. Yes, kHz, not mHz.

Also, the Xbox is 10 years old today. In 2001 it came out with a handful of quality titles, like Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham Racing, and of course Halo.

[themnax]

never understood at the time, not sure i do now, why people wanted dedicated game machines when they could have real computers.
1971 i was in the air force. i remember seeing the announcement in ieee spectrum that a cpu on a chip was available, for i don't remember, somewhere around a few hundred dollars each, in minimum quantities of a thousand.
then somewhere around 72 or 73 i think it was, projects that became the elf and then the s-100 systems appeared in electronix illustrated.
i actually made it to the first west coast computer faire, even though i still couldn't really afford anything that was available yet.

[Daryn]

It's kind of strange to see the same sort of explosion in technological innovation happening again now in the mobile space. Desktop parts have more or less hit a physical cieling, but the amount of computational performance that you can cram into a tiny Android device these days would have made the early computer pioneers gape in amazement. I mean, nowadays we're cramming a Quad-Core 1.5Ghz processor and a gigabyte of memory into something about as big as a book, only thinner. It makes me wonder where we'll be in a few years at the rate we're going.

[themnax]

i wonder whatever happened to the idea of strapping something like that to your wrist so it wouldn't fall off or get lost. like in empire stikes back, or going back further, to dick tracey's wrist radio in the funny papers in the 1950s and 60s.

[Daryn]

i wonder whatever happened to the idea of strapping something like that to your wrist so it wouldn't fall off or get lost. like in empire stikes back, or going back further, to dick tracey's wrist radio in the funny papers in the 1950s and 60s.

I suspect that the reason that didn't catch on was purely a cultural one. How many people do you see still wearing wrist watches these days? Not many. On the other hand, almost everyone has a phone. So it stands to reason that the phone would be the form factor that developed into the pocket computing device. Beyond that though, I think the wrist watch form factor would limit you in other ways. It'd probably limit the size of the screen and the interface you could use on it.

[themnax]

it could be as long as your forearm and have a keyboard that would be a lot easier to text on if it was. about the same size line the "ds". it wouldn't be a smaller form factor then existing cell phones, could actually be slightly larger. longer anyway.

not that i ever cared much for watches strapped to my wrist. i always had little clocks i could carry in my pocket instead, like the ones they make to go on the refrigerator door. but as much time as i see some people spending on their phones, fishing around in pockets and purses to dig them out, just a thought. someone could make an adopter, just a mechanical holder for them, that could be worn and attatched that way. never have to worry about dropping the blessed thing. or forgetting where we put it and having someone else dial to make it ring to find it. i know someone once who did that, almost once a week.

[Dusty]

I've heard of the wrist computer with a Bluetooth/wirelessHD connection to your glasses as a possible design in the future. I can see the idea's merits, but then it would require you to wear sunglasses in doors..... you know like THAT guy.

[WolfyWetFurr]

Progress is an awesome thing