Desk Sized Desktop

A desktop sized desktop, that is water and heat proof so you can stand your coffee on it, touch sensitive, so you can use your finger for a mouse, with smart tactile feedback, so you can popup a keyboard whenever you want, and with a built in scanner so you can drop a paper document into a folder.

: Back to the days of the MiniComputer??

Or a way of getting rid of monitors, mice, keyboards and scanners and having a nice big desk where you can work on things in the computer , and put bits of paper into the computer.

: Suffers contradictions with both UbiquitousComputing and WearableComputing. An apparent stunted imagination and that confuses the past with the future.

Sure sometimes small and portable is nice, but sometimes big and solid is good too. After all, there are ways to get at the same stuff through both.

Pens and notepads are handy for sketches and notes, but if I'm running a business I want a desk where I can spread out my stuff.

A 17" Screen is fine for one thing at a time stuff, but when I'm programming and I've got IDE's and log files open in front of me and someone comes in and I need my diary I don't want to look in menus or on task bars, I want it to be over there where I left it.

Engineers used to use A0 sized sheets of paper because it let you think about a lot at a time. With CAD you have to see everything through a 21" window. An A0 size pressure sensitive LCD screen would be much more fun.

Some people don't want to be immersed in environments nor do they want to have big pictures that they can work with interactively and can see in front of them. Other people might want wearable computers, but some prefer to be able to work on a desktop.

Maybe my opinions will change when the technology has advanced sufficiently, but maybe it won't. It is not necessarily true that everyone wants the same thing, and that there is only one true vision. TheWorldIsaVeryBigPlace, and perhaps, just perhaps, there are others who do not view it in the same way. .

Added to that the assertions go completely against all the arguments for the 3x5 index card. If we go for UbiquitousComputing and WearableComputing, how do I pick up a card and wave it about?

On a DeskSizedDesktop, you pull output on paper of different sizes in full color in the reverse manner by which you put it in: you place the whatever size thing you want from the size of something smaller than a postage stamp to that of the full size of the desktop and the computer puts it out. If you however limit yourself to the Wearable Computer, you will have to wait a few computing generations for someone to figure out how to do that. You may however be able to expose your 3 by 5 card viewable by others with Compatible Wearable Computers which are appropriately linked.

A desk sized desktop is a good example of UbiquitousComputing. The top of my desk should be a display, a scanner and a touch pad. My drawers should be printers.

I like the DeskSizedDesktop idea! I still want my full immersion sunglasses though.. much like I want both my current desktop machine AND a laptop. Variety is good and TotalImmersionComputing? won't be for everyone.

I think he just wants

...end of line.

How about the headlink, as in Fred Saberhagen's yarns? Or what about the implant, as in the Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle tales? Or just the commlink, as in the David Drake stories? There's a reason I've been reading this SF stuff for 35 years.