3.1038 ideal workstations (99)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Mon, 12 Feb 90 21:57:32 EST

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1038. Monday, 12 Feb 1990.


(1) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 90 16:36:00 EST (16 lines)
From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1020 ideal workstations (85)

(2) Date: Sun, 11 Feb 90 21:12:06 EST (25 lines)
From: "Steven J. DeRose" <IR400011@BROWNVM>
Subject: Workstations and portability

(3) Date: 12 February 1990 (20 lines)
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Perfect Workstation Blues

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 90 16:36:00 EST
From: "Vicky A. Walsh" <IMD7VAW@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1020 ideal workstations (85)

I don't believe there is, or necessarily should be, an IDEAL workstation
for everyone. Even if a machine could be produced to do everything
(well?) would any one of us need all of it? The thing to do is assess
what YOU do and therefore what you need and then see which software does
it and only then which hardware platform supports it. Your ideal
machine is not my ideal machine and perhaps what is more necessary is
the ability to move things between lots of different machines (some of
which can be done now). Also, perhaps the ideal to strive for is the
ideal system/network/workspace that allows easy access to all the pieces
many Humanists have mentioned; you don't need to 'own' all these things
on your machine.
Vicky Walsh
UCLA Humanities Computing
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------33----
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 90 21:12:06 EST
From: "Steven J. DeRose" <IR400011@BROWNVM>
Subject: Workstations and portability


2 notes:

I suspect that however far we progress, the "ideal workstation" will
simply be a computer with speed, storage, display, and software about
3 times better than we have. It was not long ago at all that the
"ultimate scholar's workstation" was thought to be the "3M": 1 Meg RAM,
1 Meg pixels (1024*1024, or a little larger than the "2 page" display now
fairly common), and 1 Meg instructions per second (e.g., half a Mac II).

I'm puzzled by the side discussion of "portability" of data, wherein
the examples cited as wonderful have been single programs that run on
several machines, such as WordPerfect. I'd call that software marketing,
not portability. Portability is when I can use the file you send me
even if I *don't* have WordPerfect (I don't) or "nifty word processor
X". It is standardization of *data* that matters, not of software,
nor even of how the data looks on with screen/printer/font/layout/etc.

Insert positive rumblings about SGML and TEI here.

Steve
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 February 1990
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Perfect Workstation Blues

To the extent that the Perfect Workstation Blues cause us to think
clearly about what it is that we do, then I'm certainly in favour of a
long discussion. Faster, ok, but why? Big storage space, ditto.
Multitasking the same. Functions we don't even have a name for. Why?
What are we after? Answers of the form "so I can download files, write
my essay, and calculate my grades all at the same time" are really not
very helpful, even though they may be true.

I like to think of Hephaestus and Daedalus, the original gadgeteers of
Western culture. What were they up to? Why did the latter, for example,
keep getting caught in traps of his own devising?



Yours, Willard McCarty