How Will We Use Tomorrows PCs essays

How Will We Use Tomorrows PCs essays Tomorrow's PCs are going to be different in many ways; they will be more powerful, they will include more facilities for multimedia, and looking further ahead, they may have features such as three dimensional displays, or wrap around virtual reality. These changes will shape the way which we use our PCs, but even without such advances, there are changes that can and will take place in the operating systems that enable us to make better use of PCs. I would like to focus here on some of the changes that I believe are desirable. So what is wrong with today's operating systems Plenty. Whereas the hardware for today's desk top PCs has advanced at an ever increasing pace, the operating systems have not matched up to the hardware. To be sure, there has been progress. The world of windows is a significant advance on the primitive command line interface of the original PC operating systems. But this represents merely a catching up with the state of the art of thirty years ago. The cost power ratio of current microprocessors would have amazed the pioneers at IBM who developed these things, but they would not have been too impressed with the operating system. One of the other things wrong with operating systems is just that - the name. I either have to spell it out all the time, or fall back on the somewhat cryptic OS; and what exactly does 'operating system' mean to the average PC user? It sounds more like something you expect to find in a hospital than on a home computer. What is needed is a name that is more user friendly, and represents better the relationship I believe should exist between the PC and the user. In a world where the average user is well used to the infra red controller to zap the TV, hi-fi or VCR, I suggest that Controller is a better word to use than operating system, so that is what I shall use. Current controllers have evolved as being little more than a way of users getting application programs to operate on their ...