By Joe Fury
August , 1987 From Gallery Magazine
PC-2000
The do-everything machine of the future
Within the next decade, the personal computer will be the size,
of a cigarette pack, cost between $200.00 and $300.00,
and do things today's science fiction writers are
only beginning to comprehend.
Weighing in at a mere few ounces,
it will be a combination telephone,
television, library, secretary and advisor.
It's "eyes" will read, store,
and sort information for you.
Its "ears" will listen to you and people and people telephoning you.
Its "voice" will talk to you and advise you.
It will come with a one million-page memory,
and the ability to develop a "personality" to complement yours.
You'll be able talk to your computer in a dozen major languages,
and it will translate into the spoken word or printed text.
To use today's computers, typing is a necessity.
So, clerks, secretaries, typists,
and video-game addicts use them more than writers,
educators, doctors, and scientists.
But that will change within the next decade. Computers can already talk,
play chess, learn from their mistakes, hear words,
and recognize voices.
Soon they'll carry on a conversation.
The power, speed and economy of microchips will give,
personal computers an interactive personality that will aid and,
complement user skills.
More than a number-cruncher. secretary or teacher, it will be a friend.
This new relationship will be possible because of the increased power
and memory of a computer's "brain". Its brain will be an extension
of human intelligence, and the user can be an extension of its.
Although it will have a vast and swift electronic brain,
it will serve primarily as a communicator.
Through radio and telephone facilities, and ultimately,
through satellite and microwaves, people will seek knowledge
from a vast universe of information.
Time, distance, or language won't hamper this search.
Just about everyone will have access to these superbrains.
They will turn ordinary people into wizards of extraordinary capabilities;
the catalyst of an astounding intellectual and social evolution.
Soon, anyone who can speak a modern language,
will have access to much of the world's information and thought.
The new machines will find, store, and teach anything about anything.
They will take the knowledge you have and return it to their universe
of knowledge so others van learn and build upon your experience.
The personal computer will become part of a huge, living, growing,
intellectual organism--one that will teach, educate,
and then be educated by all who use it.
It will be a boon to those who ever wondered:
"What would happen if. . .?" but never found out because,
learning meant trips to the library,
long distance phone calls, and travels to intellectual dead ends.
The new personal micros will handle that drudgery.
They will seek information,
answer questions, exchange and amplify thoughts,
and then report back with the details--seeking out experts the world over,
reading their research papers, and reporting their findings.
They'll do this on their own,
constantly sharing their learning.
The computer of the next millennium will allow everyone,
to exchange information at any hour.
The barriers of time and distance and language will vanish.
As you read this article, a computer service is scanning the wire services
and five major newspapers everyday, all month,
for medical stories for a speech I am giving.
My computer will call the service tomorrow,
pick up the stories that apply, and put them in a word processor.
The new devices will do this and more.
According to Brad McMillan, the wizard of Visionary Electronics,
the new personal computers will connect everyone to everybody.
It will revolutionary effects in every facet of life.
McMillan's expertise lies in telecommunications .
About five years ago, he combined a computer chip,
and a program with a telephone, and quietly revolutionized
communications for personal computers.
Today, thousands of his inventions spend days and evenings
calling each other, exchanging information, and passing it
on to humans.
McMillan's Visionary Megabyte responds to commands typed in
plain English. You could type a command like:
"At two a.m. call up all branch offices and send new prices."
The Visionary will spend the night (when telephone rates are lowest)
calling up Visionaries or other devices and exchanging information.
It will dutifully redial any busy numbers and answer queries proposed
by other computers.
The Visionary is the size of a hardcover book, holds 500 pages
of information, and costs about $600.00. Once programmed in
simple English-Language commands, , these little gray boxes
can spend years gathering and exchanging information without
human intervention.
"Now, we're restricted to metal wires which can only hold so
much information", complains McMillan, "but fiber optics are
on the scene now. They can carry so much information,
we're looking at revolutionary changes.
"For instance, one fiber-optic cable can carry all of the audio and video
information from 130 separate television channels."
Once personal micros can access these lines, there's no limit
to the amount of information that can go out or come in
over these wires.
"if you had a band, and wanted people to hear and buy your music,
you'd have to go to a record company, get the music recorded,
and then distribute it.
In ten years you'll be able to record that music into a
personal computer and send it to subscribers over a telephone line.
I'm talking about digital music, the kind you hear on compact discs.
No distortion and awesome dynamic range.
"The new computers will revolutionize the entertainment industry."
But McMillan believes what they'll do for science will be,
even more revolutionary.
"Today if you're on to some scientific or medical breakthrough,
you can't just go and publish your findings."
"With the coming personal computers that are easy to use and great at
broadcasting, scientists and physicians and other people with answers
won't wind up frustrated and talking to themselves. A scientist will be able
to talk to the world and find some computer that is listening and anxious
to pass that information to other people and other machines."
Beyond this cosmic connection, the new personal computer will help with
the more mundane chores of life. It will connect people to people and
information everywhere and help process, store, and use that information.
It will keep expense accounts, monitor stock prices, place orders to buy
and sell stock according to programmed limits, authorize and pay bills,
and stop payment on checks.
You can have it call a friend and ask about dining out.
It could suggest restaurants, read menus, make recommendations ,
and make the reservations.
Today there are word-processing programs for lousy typists.
As typists start a word, the computer will guess at what the word is,
and finish it on it's own.
The more you work with these programs,
the more they learn your vocabulary
and personal style.
One of the more intriguing programs is called Mind Reader.
But after a few weeks, users find themselves fighting for
control of the display screen.
The program constantly interrupts your typing to finish your
sentences for you.
There are other programs that will edit writing,
identifying and then correcting spelling mistakes.
Other programs are geared to punctuation, grammar, style, word usage,
and readability. These friendly programs find mistakes and show how
to fix them. They are there consummate teacher. Always correct, friendly,
consistent, and helpful.
By the year 2000, they'll zero in on an individual's strengths
and weaknesses,customizing themselves to work with the skills,
and weaknesses of each other.
They'll pace themselves for the slow learner,
fill in detail for those who have
difficulty visualizing the abstract,
and race to the bottom line for those that must
know where they're going before they start.
Soon, time and distance, language and happenstance won't separate
collective genius. The coming computers will make weak memories indelible
and unerring, remembering everything said to it, and recalling it in an instant.
This instantaneous response will be possible because memories are getting
larger as they become more compact and faster. Thousand-dollar desk-top
micros can think faster and remember more than million-dollar machines
of just ten years ago.
Ten years ago, a chip the size of the first joint of an index finger could hold
two kilobytes and store about one page of information. Today there are
one-megabyte chips about the same size and cost, that can store 500
pages of information. The Japanese will soon market a similar-sized chip
that will store 15 megabytes, or about 7,500 pages of information.
The information in the next millennium's computer won't just lie in the
computer's "brain" gathering static. it will interact with itself, you,
and other devices, using its memory the way humans use their minds,
combining and analyzing
concepts to create philosophies.
Today, minicomputers process information at about four million
instructions per second. The speed of these computers will continue
to increase over the next 15 years.
In the year 2000, PC's will process a billion instructions per second--
faster than themulti-million-dollar machines limited to defense and
research centers today.
These new machines will be friendlier because the software available will
help you determine their personalities.
Unlike the limited capability of today's computer memories
which hamper programmers,
forcing them to write programs in a unique shorthand and
produce codes to make the
data processors work, the new software writers will be able to
write programs that are tolerant of mistakes,
and allow people to develop their own interaction with it's
knowledge and power.
The original Apple II had 48 (kilobytes) of memory; about 16 pages.
It was quickly upgraded to 64k, and then to 128k.
It operated at a speed of one megahertz.
Then IBM came out with its PC,
which originally operated with 64k at about 5 megahertz.
Soon they expanded its active memory to 640k.
Today, personal computers can operate at 24 megahertz,
with an active memory of 4 billion k.
That's two billion pages of interactive information.
In five years, computer speed has increased 24 thousand percent,
increasing memory a millionfold.
These gargantuan minds in small, desk-top boxes won't
operate on esoteric codes.
Soon they'll process the spoken word--any spoken word,
in any language.
The new wave of software will readily adapt to the conversational computer.
It will learn dialects so it can recognize words easily, and speak in
any modern language. Through a series of questions and answers, you'll
write your own programs and modify tim as you see fit. The process will be
in your language, on your terms, the way you like to learn or work.
Personal computers in the hands of everyone will change more than people.
They will change the world. The unfettered genius of people who are no longer
isolated from each other as people, or as nations, might lead mankind
toward working together.
And this unity might create world working toward it's perfection,
not its destruction.
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By Joe Fury
August , 1987 From Gallery Magazine
