365 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
365 lines
21 KiB
Plaintext
Please read the administrivia section at end for important
|
|
subscription and access information. Thanks!
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
BBB III TTT SSS BBB Y Y TTT EEE SSS
|
|
B B I T S B B Y Y T E S ONLINE EDITION
|
|
BBB I T SSS AND BBB YYY T EEE SSS VOL 1, NUMBER 4
|
|
B B I T S B B Y T E S 8/3/93
|
|
BBB III T SSS BBB Y T EEE SSS
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have
|
|
plenty of messenger boys."
|
|
- Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Peter Drucker I: The Future of Labor and Industry
|
|
|
|
International economic theory is obsolete. The traditional factors of
|
|
production - land, labor, and capital - are becoming restraints rather
|
|
than driving forces. Knowledge is becoming the one critical factor of
|
|
production. ... Knowledge has become the central, key resource that
|
|
knows no geography. It underlies the most significant and unprecedented
|
|
social phenomena of this century. No class in history has ever risen
|
|
as fast as the blue-collar worker and no class has ever fallen as
|
|
fast. All within less than a century. ... Now we have a Secretary of
|
|
Labor [Robert Reich, see B&B v1 #1] who openly declared, in "The Work
|
|
of Nations," that the blue collar worker doesn't matter. And the
|
|
unions accepted him. ... Abandoning people and products is the
|
|
necessary handmaiden of organizational survival. In the early 70's,
|
|
the last round of military cuts in the California bay area caused
|
|
massive unemployment; but that became the fertile ground in which
|
|
Silicon Valley blossomed. ...it makes more sense for you to make
|
|
obsolete your own products rather than wait for your competitor to do
|
|
it. ... I've always believed that success is the worst enemy of
|
|
change, and failure its best friend. [Just look at IBM - JM]
|
|
****
|
|
[Peter Drucker is considered the father of modern management. In the
|
|
1950's, Drucker realized that success in business would be determined
|
|
by how well managed an organization was, not how large or well
|
|
financed it was. He coined the term "knowledge worker" long before the
|
|
information age became a cliche. To this day Drucker's writings and
|
|
opinions are avidly sought by readers of The Wall Street Journal and
|
|
the well-informed CEOS of corporations around the world. The previous
|
|
comments were excerpted from an interview with Drucker by Peter
|
|
Schwartz in WIRED Magazine 1.3, the July/August 1993 issue, still on
|
|
your newsstand and highly recommended. Peter Drucker is 82 years old,
|
|
and his most recent book is "Post Capitalist Society"]
|
|
==========================================================================
|
|
Brazil, Where The Worker Is King
|
|
|
|
Semco, a Brazilian manufacturer of pumps and industrial equipment,
|
|
lets most employees decide their own working hours and salaries.
|
|
(Some workers earn more than their bosses.) Employees set productivity
|
|
and sales targets, and they decide how to share out bonuses. They also
|
|
have unlimited access to the company's books. There are no manuals or
|
|
written procedures, and no controls over travel and business expenses.
|
|
Peer pressure prevents abuse of freedoms. "All we're doing is treating
|
|
people like adults." The company has 300 employees and has helped
|
|
start another 200 in independent businesses. As owner, Ricardo Semler
|
|
demands healthy dividends. His book, "Maverick!" (Century, Warner
|
|
Books, 272 pages, $22.95) is just coming out, but the Portuguese
|
|
version has been on Brazil's bestseller list for 199 weeks and has
|
|
sold 460K copies. (Source: The Economist, 6/26/93, p. 66)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
The Advantage Law of Information
|
|
|
|
Getting information to the people who need it when they need it will
|
|
provide the two key components for an organization's success in a
|
|
chaotic world: speed and flexibility. The organization that can
|
|
predict customer needs, respond to customer desires, and react to
|
|
customer problems the fastest will come out on top. The ultimate goal
|
|
is to reduce overall cycle time for informed action. (Source: Frank J.
|
|
Ricotta Jr., "The Six Immutable Laws of Information," Information
|
|
Week, 7/19/93, p. 63)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
The Aurora Tests: Taking a Test Drive On The Information Highway
|
|
|
|
Participants in the Aurora research network tests report that they
|
|
have successfully begun transmitting data and video signals across the
|
|
high speed network backbone. The first transmission, on May 7, 1993: a
|
|
brief series of numbers and fragments of alphabet. Nothing more
|
|
inspiring than "012345....". Still, what mattered wasn't the meat of
|
|
the message, but the motion. Those digits moved at record-setting
|
|
speed: 2.6 gigabits-per-second. And how fast is that? Fast enough to
|
|
send the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica from Philadelphia to Boston
|
|
in a quarter of a second, University of Pennsylvania researchers said.
|
|
That's *fast*. Trying the same thing with a home computer and modem
|
|
would take 3 days. These tests are one of 5 other high speed test
|
|
networks being tested under the auspices of the National Science
|
|
Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under a
|
|
1990, $15.8 million contract to university supercomputer centers.
|
|
Participating phone companies and switching manufacturers are
|
|
providing equipment and switching services out of their own pockets
|
|
at a cost far beyond the level of government funding. "The goals of
|
|
these test beds are to figure out how to build these networks and what
|
|
to use them for," said Dave Sincoskie, executive director of computer
|
|
networking research at Bell Communications Research Inc. Video signals
|
|
are now being sent over these connections. I personally know someone
|
|
affiliated with the U of P and can report that he used the video
|
|
hookup to watch the PC lab being cleaned at night from the privacy of
|
|
his home. Science marches on! Hey, you missed a spot... Seriously
|
|
though, these test beds may be the first pieces of the National
|
|
Information Highway, with uses in medicine, telecommuting, business
|
|
teleconferencing, new forms of entertainment, and uses far beyond what
|
|
anyone can imagine right now.
|
|
(Sources: Computerworld 4/12/93, 7/5/93, Communications Week 7/5/93,
|
|
and The Philadelphia Inquirer, date unknown)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Chaos Theory
|
|
|
|
In almost every organization, the information from which all business
|
|
decisions spring resembles less an orderly strand of genetic material
|
|
than a chaotic, unsolved jigsaw puzzle. To a technologist, perhaps,
|
|
the percentage of business information that is safely, rationally
|
|
computerized is frighteningly small. Instead, the stuff from which
|
|
strategies are built floats more or less freely through the corporate
|
|
air and waits for a leader to recognize it. (Source: Thomas Kiely,
|
|
"Key Pieces Of Information," CIO magazine, 6/1/93, p. 49)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
United States In The Grip of Technophobia
|
|
|
|
A study released Monday by Dell Computer found that more than half of
|
|
all Americans are still resistant to taking advantage of technology in
|
|
their everyday lives. The survey showed that one-fourth of all US
|
|
adults have never used a computer, set a VCR to record a television
|
|
show or even programmed their favorite stations on a car radio.
|
|
32% of adults are intimidated by computers and worry about damaging
|
|
one if they use it without assistance; 25% of the adults "miss the
|
|
days when we just had typewriters," and more than one-fourth would not
|
|
use a computer unless forced to. The study is part of an ongoing
|
|
effort by Dell to "techno-type" users into one of several broad
|
|
categories that will help people understand what computers can do for
|
|
them and how they can go about finding their perfect PC match. This
|
|
fear of technology is seen as an obstacle that must be overcome to
|
|
achieve broad consumer acceptance for computers and computer-enabled
|
|
devices in the US. The study shows that teenagers are more technically
|
|
aware than adults, with 92 percent of all teens surveyed saying they
|
|
are comfortable using technical gadgets such as answering machines,
|
|
VCR's, CD players, and computers. Both adults and teens agree on two
|
|
key points: First, that using computers can save them time, and
|
|
second, that computer terminology is too confusing and hard to
|
|
understand. (Dell: 314/982-9111) (Sources: St. Petersburg Times
|
|
7/27/93, p. E1, Newsbytes 7/26/93, and Informaion Week 8/2/93, p. 46)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Inside The Programmer's Mind
|
|
|
|
Last among the essential personality traits for programming, we might
|
|
add a sense of humor. The computer "Doth make fools of us all," so
|
|
that any fool without the ability to share a laugh on himself will be
|
|
unable to tolerate programming for long. It has been said with great
|
|
perspicacity that the programmer's national anthem is "AAAAHHHH!"
|
|
Then we finally see the light, we see how once again we have fallen
|
|
into some foolish assumption, some oafish practice, or some witless
|
|
blunder. Only by singing the second stanza "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha," can we
|
|
long endure the role of clown.
|
|
|
|
(from The Psychology of Computer Programming by Gerard M. Weinberg)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Mind Over Matter
|
|
|
|
Will computers soon be able to read your mind? At Fujitsu Ltd., that's
|
|
exactly what researchers are trying to get their machines to do, as
|
|
they continue to develop a computer that reads and obeys signals
|
|
associated with thoughts and body motions. Thus far, they have created
|
|
a computer-assisted robot hand that can mimic the motions of a human
|
|
hand by analyzing the tiny nerve pulses sent from the brain to the
|
|
finger muscles. They hope in a few years to have marketable brain-
|
|
controlled artificial limbs that would be much less cumbersome than
|
|
what's currently available. Meanwhile, N.Y. State Department of Health
|
|
researchers have developed a system that enables users to move the
|
|
cursor by mental action alone. Psychologists with the University of
|
|
Illinois have created a way of allowing people to type simply by
|
|
spelling the word out in their mind. None of this is parapsychology;
|
|
it's pure science.
|
|
(Sources: Tampa Tribune 7/27/93, New York Times, 2/9/93)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES:
|
|
|
|
Schizophrenic PC To Debut
|
|
|
|
The DUET personal computer, just announced by NuTek U.S.A. Corp.,
|
|
is essentially two computers in one. It is a 2 chip machine, based on
|
|
the Intel 486DX and the Motorola 68030, both running at 33 MHz. In a
|
|
nutshell, this machine can run Macintosh and IBM PC software
|
|
simultaneously! The standard configuration includes a keyboard,
|
|
monitor, 8 MEG of RAM, 160 MEG of storage on 2 hard disks. 2 expansion
|
|
slots for each system are provided. This system may provide the answer
|
|
for users torn between the 2 systems, both of which have their
|
|
strengths and weaknesses. I have not seen any reviews of this machine,
|
|
which has a base price of $2,995. The concept is intriguing though.
|
|
(NuTek USA: 408/973-8799) (Source: Datamation, 7/15/93, p. 68)
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
Apple to Release Talking Macs!
|
|
|
|
Apple Computer plans to announce a new line of mid-priced Macs today
|
|
that talk, recognize voice commands and read text back to the user.
|
|
The computers will be available next month. (Miami Herald 7/29/93 C3)
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
Time Magazine To Go On-line
|
|
|
|
Using America Online, Time magazine will be the first general-interest
|
|
magazine to provide an electronic forum allowing readers to hold
|
|
discussions with the magazine's reporters and editors and to read the
|
|
text of entire issues of Time electronically before the magazine is
|
|
available on newsstands. (Source: New York Times 7/26/93, p. C6)
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
Prodigy To Offer Internet Connection
|
|
|
|
Prodigy is alpha-testing a gateway to the Internet, but few users are
|
|
authorized to use it yet. The charge is $.15 per 3K characters
|
|
received, with a 60KB limit per message (or 250KB for internal binary
|
|
transfers). (Source: needje@msen.com, 7/26/93)
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
A short-wavelength laser from IBM will allow optical disks to hold
|
|
five times as much data. (Source: New York Times, 6/2/93)
|
|
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
Faster 486 Outpaces Pentium
|
|
|
|
The Pentium chip is taking a backseat at Intel in favor of DX3, a
|
|
revved-up version of the i486 microprocessor. The chip, which runs
|
|
internally at 100 MHz is expected to give near-Pentium performance at
|
|
a much lower cost. In effect, the DX3 - not Pentium - will be Intel's
|
|
high-volume, high-performance chip through the first half of 1994.
|
|
(Source: Michael Fitzgerald, "Faster 486 Could Overlap Pentium,"
|
|
Computerworld, 7/19/93, p. 1. )
|
|
|
|
===================================================================
|
|
= Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum =
|
|
= tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only =
|
|
= 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons. =
|
|
= Popular Mechanics, March 1949. =
|
|
===================================================================
|
|
Mainframe On A Chip
|
|
|
|
Last week B&B reported on a luggable mid-range AS/400 computer
|
|
developed by IBM, hailing it as a marvel of miniaturization. Well,
|
|
never mind - IBM has outdone *themselves* this time. It seems they
|
|
have been showing off a mainframe add-in card for its Intel-based
|
|
model 195 and 295 multi-processor servers. The card includes a shrunk
|
|
down (and much cooler) IBM 390-class CPU and 16 megabytes of mainframe
|
|
memory. It can run anything IBM's low- and midrange System 390
|
|
machines can run without modification. That includes all your
|
|
favorites: the Customer Information Control System (CICS), the DB2
|
|
relational database and the Time Sharing Option (TSO), as well as the
|
|
MVS and VM operating systems. Running under the multitasking OS/2 2.x,
|
|
the card handles all I/O and can, for example, control your mainframe
|
|
system tape drive if you need to download any of your existing
|
|
software. When can you buy this truly downsized mainframe? IBM won't
|
|
say, but the engineers working on the product say they expect it to be
|
|
ready for purchase by year's end. (Source: Datamation, 7/15/93, p. 16)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Bits and Bytes Bookshelf: Summertime Science Fiction Suggestions
|
|
|
|
Man does not life by technical non-fiction alone. It's summertime, and
|
|
maybe you want to relax by the pool with a good science fiction novel.
|
|
These are all books I have read and enjoyed, but they were also chosen
|
|
with an eye to giving you a glimpse of some of the possible futures
|
|
that the information age may bring upon us.
|
|
|
|
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson [Bantam Books, 1992. $5.99]
|
|
-In the near future, Americans excel at only a few things: music,
|
|
movies, microcode (software), and delivering a pizza in under 30
|
|
minutes... Things are run by the franchises and Burbclaves, the
|
|
latter having their own citizens, constitutions, laws, and cops.
|
|
Much of the action takes place in the Metaverse, a virtual reality
|
|
universe in which the coolest have the best rendered avatars. A
|
|
founding programmer of The Black Sun, an exclusive Metaverse club,
|
|
the book's protagonist Hiro is down on his luck and lives in a
|
|
spacious 20-by-30-foot U-Stor-lt near the Los Angeles Airport. Snow
|
|
Crash is a computer virus that is striking down hackers everywhere!
|
|
Thrills aplenty, and some interesting thoughts about where we *may*
|
|
be headed. "Snow Crash is a fantastic, slam-bang-overdrive,
|
|
supersurrealistic, cosmic-spooky whirl through a tomorrow that is
|
|
already happening." (Timothy Leary)
|
|
|
|
Earth by David Brin [Bantam Books, 1991. $5.99]
|
|
-A microscopic black hole has accidentally fallen into the earth's
|
|
core, threatening to destroy the planet within 2 years. "Earth" is an
|
|
edge of the seat thriller, a kaleidoscopic novel peopled with extra-
|
|
ordinary characters and challenging new visions of an incredibly real
|
|
future: global computer networks that put limitless information at
|
|
everyone's fingertips, an environment ravaged by the greenhouse
|
|
effect, a quiet revolution by the politically powerful elderly.
|
|
(From the back cover)
|
|
|
|
Islands In The Net by Bruce Sterling [Ace books, 1988. $4.99]
|
|
-Bruce Sterling, who has been quoted in B&B, is a great sci-fi writer.
|
|
Read anything by him and you will not be disappointed. I choose this
|
|
one in particular because it has much to say about some very likely
|
|
aspects of the future. The book, set in the not too distant future,
|
|
imagines a world where the power is in the hands of mega-national
|
|
corporations (not a major stretch here), with a worldwide computer
|
|
(and human) network (hence the title) at their commands. The
|
|
protagonist and her husband both work for one of these corporations,
|
|
and their lives become swept up in a power struggle that will change
|
|
their lives and their relationships with each other in ways they
|
|
can't begin to imagine.
|
|
|
|
Neuromancer by William Gibson [Ace Books, 1984]
|
|
- The novel that launched the cyberpunk movement. A great read if
|
|
you don't take the science too seriously. An engrossing mix of film
|
|
noir darkness and "high-tech electric poetry... an enthralling
|
|
adventure story, as brilliant and coherent as a laser. This is why
|
|
science fiction was invented." (Bruce Sterling) Virtual reality is
|
|
represented via the Matrix, a worldwide computer net that people log
|
|
onto by plugging their brains into it. Corporate databases are
|
|
represented as bright geometric structures; artificial intelligences
|
|
roam the dataverse, and maybe, just maybe, *something else* is
|
|
lurking in the matrix, something new, yet ancient as the cosmos.
|
|
|
|
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology edited by Bruce Sterling
|
|
[Ace Books, 1988)
|
|
- The place to start for an overview of the talents of the various
|
|
authors of the cyberpunk movement. "...filled with surreal visionary
|
|
intensity. They are often sexy, occasionally lewd, always
|
|
frightening, are filled with with black humor, obsessed with the
|
|
interface of high-tech and pop underground, and always fascinating."
|
|
(Fantasy Review)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
Does Dick Tracy Know About This?
|
|
|
|
Japan's major calculator maker, Casio, has come up with a wrist watch
|
|
that has a built-in remote control unit. This unique device will be
|
|
released on August 17 at a cost of 9,500 yen ($85). Like the new breed
|
|
of universal remote controls, the wrist watch controller can control
|
|
most audio visual devices such as TV sets, stereos and video players.
|
|
It uses infrared technology just the same as regular remote control
|
|
devices. The remote controller can control multiple audio devices and
|
|
supports a TV's power on/off, channel selection, and volume control.
|
|
Regarding VCR operation, it supports power on/off, fast forward/
|
|
rewind, play, stop, and channel selection. The controller is the size
|
|
of an ordinary wrist watch. No more playing hide and seek with your
|
|
remote controls! Besides these advanced functions, the wrist watch
|
|
also has the standard features you'd expect, such as a stopwatch, an
|
|
alarm clock and a calendar. The removable battery lasts for about a
|
|
year and half. Casio expects this remote controller to be a big hit
|
|
in Japan. The firm is planning to ship 100,000 units per month.
|
|
(Newsbytes News Service, 7/7/93)
|
|
======================================================================
|
|
ADMINISTRIVIA
|
|
************DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS!!!*************
|
|
Bits and Bytes Online is a weekly electronic newsletter.
|
|
Email Subscriptions are available at no cost from slakmaster@aol.com
|
|
or jmachado@pacs.pha.pa.us. Put "SUBSCRIBE in the subject header and
|
|
your email address in the body of the message. If you work for "the
|
|
rail" (and you know who you are) send a similar message to my
|
|
emailbox. To unsubscribe, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
|
|
subject header and your email address in the body. B&B is also
|
|
available for downloading on America Online in their telecom files
|
|
area, and in Compuserve's telecom forum library. If you decide to
|
|
receive B&B that way, please don't forget to unsubscribe! On the
|
|
Internet, B&B will be available from various servers and mailing
|
|
lists. Details next issue. (I said that last week, but this time I
|
|
mean it! Questions and comments are welcome at any address. If you
|
|
come across anything you think should be included here, please pass
|
|
it on! Send long postings to the pacs address. If you need to reach
|
|
me on paper, my snailmail address follows:
|
|
===============================================
|
|
= (Copyleft 1993 Jay Machado) Unaltered =
|
|
Jay Machado = *electronic* distribution of this file for =
|
|
1529 Dogwood Drive = non-profit purposes is encouraged. =
|
|
Cherry Hill, NJ, 08003 = The opinions expressed herein are pretty =
|
|
ph (eve) 609/795-0998 = darn kooky when you get right down to it. =
|
|
= Caveat Lector! =
|
|
=============== end of Bits and Bytes Online V1, #4.==================
|
|
|