Terminals

 

Naïve Art (Primitivism) / Maria Primachenko/ Ukrainian Bull, Three Years Old, Went Walking Through the Woods and Garners Strength

A long long time ago in college, I had a roommate Scott.  For a while we were friends, but as I ended up marrying his girlfriend, that kind of came to a screeching halt.  

This was back in the wayback.  Early to mid-eighties.  He was certain that all computers were going to be centralized and individual users were going to just use terminals and slave off the mainframes.  I was certain that general-purpose computing was the thing and stand-alone computers were the bomb.

Odd that should come to mind now almost forty years later while I am plunking away on my spiffy little chromebook.  Which oddly enough is a hybrid between the two models that provided so much grist for drunken intemperate quarrels. We were both wrong, as is the wont for would-be prophecies.

We have arrived at a hybrid now.  General purpose computing is being minimized and made co-equal with terminal-style computing.  Chrome and the Internet is how this happened. I am not certain about whether this is a bad idea or a good idea.  One of the things I need to sort out.