Less is more.
Personal computing is getting on for 30 years old. The IBM PC was launched in July 1981 and the prototype of the Apple Mackintosh was demonstrated around the same time. Both companies had been selling desktop computers for some years, but it was in 1981 that the fundamental architecture of what we are familiar with today was born.
Since then, Moore’s law – which states that computing power will roughly double every 18 months – has held true.
Which means that the power under the hood of the computers we have available today is so far in advance of what those early machines were capable of that we might as well be living in an age of magic. Yet, way back then, we were blown away by the awesome monochromatic displays, the feeble beeps and the molasses-like processing speeds.
The 1981 IBM PC cost $1600 and ran a 4.77Mhz processor, had 16K of RAM and could store 180Kb on a floppy disk.
Today, for $1600, your processor will run 558 times faster, you’ll have 187,000 times more RAM and with a Terabyte hard drive you’ll be able to store 6 million times more data. But the stats belie the fact that with new chip architectures, dual or multi-core technology and dedicated sound and graphics cards, the computers of today bear no comparison whatever to those of 1981.
So where will it all end? Will we all have quantum computers in a few year’s time? Possibly, but we might also just start going backwards.
The fact is that apart from high-level gamers, most of us have no use for all the power inside our computers. Companies like Microsoft and Apple are having to build more and more stuff into their operating systems just to get some use out of the spare capacity.
Most people would be quite happy with a basic computer that can handle emails, let you type the odd letter, browse the Internet and play solitaire. Any computer from within the last 10 years – maybe even 15 would suffice!
That’s why the small, pared-down micro laptops that we are seeing more of are becoming so popular. They are cheap, they have long battery lives and they do the job that most people really want from a computer.
Less is more.
The same applies in that other area where the exploding power of microprocessors has been harnesses: games consoles.
While the X-Box and its competitors have been going for ever-increasing power and complexity, Nintendo have slipped the Wii onto the market – with less power and simpler games – and have been a huge success.
Less is more there too.
The future of computing may not be reliant on Moore’s law for much longer. Perhaps we have reached a time when cleverer computing is going to outrun muscle, when elegance of design is going to outweigh complexity and when sheer usability is more important to us that just having the latest powerhouse on our desk.
Or perhaps the very idea of having a computer on a desk will be outdated too.
Less is most definitely more.