March 1, 1999 — Newsletter #17

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warrior…

When I wrote newsletter 17, it was a very good year…

I was sitting in my living room watching some prime time
show, when a commercial for the Macintosh iMac came on.
You know the one: It’s shot like the six different color
iMacs are dancing around in an old MGM musical.

As the heavy string music played, my wife turned to me and
asked, “If you were going to buy an iMac, what color would
you buy?”

“Purple,” I said. Then, internally, I screamed.

You’re buying a computer because of its color? Don’t you care
what processor is inside? Do the Megs of RAM not bug you?
What about monitor resolution? The cache? The BIOS? The
motherboard? Has it come to this? Are we buying computers
because they go with the curtains? That’s like buying an
exercise cycle because you need a place to hang your dirty
clothes!

Now I’m starting to see commercials for the Pentium III where
Norsemen ram a door with a log to try and open it. Intel is
starting to yell about this new PC-in-the-car they’ve
developed. And Compaq actually got in a story about their new
Palm PC with a color monitor. A color monitor is worthy of a
major news source posting the story?

But maybe it’s not so crazy.

When I was 16, the coolest thing a person could have was a
great stereo system. Back then, Technique was the big name
and the way to buy a stereo was in parts. The techie term
was to buy in “components.” But not just any components,
big, black, metal components with lots and lots of red
glowing buttons. That way you could spin your Earth, Wind,
and Fire disc and turn the lights way down low. The LED
readouts would throw shadows and the graphic equalizer would
show 36 little red dots, 18 per channel. Of course, the graphic
equalizer wasn’t set to make the sound any better; you set it
so that the little red lights on the front of all 36 sliding
buttons made a neat pattern, which, of course, did nothing
to amplify the bass.

Sound familiar?

The sound was less important than the look. Computer salespeople
are starting to sell the same way. The computer has become a
household status symbol. You have to have one. Nowadays, if you
run into a person who doesn’t own a computer, you feel compelled
to ask if they have running water in their home.

I own a Pentium133 laptop. It’s a great computer. It does
everything I want it to. It has never given me trouble and
always boots.

So why does it seem I need that new Pentium III?

Because it’s got 500MHz clock speeds, 70 new instructions,
100MHz system bus, 512K level two cache, Intel. 440BX chipset,
mag wheels, fuel injection, overhead cams, ABS brakes, and a
ton of little red lights! Yeah!!

I don’t even know what some of that stuff means, but when I
read about it I am overcome with the need to watch the movie
“Rocky.” I feel like I have to have it. It’s my muscle car,
my designer jeans.

It’s my status symbol, my place within this little group of
people I hang out with. We don’t brag about our battle scars,
we talk about who has the fastest processor, like we’re going
to do processing for pink slips.

So, is my wife’s question about what color I would like any
different than my wanting all that power? No. We do have
different ideas about what is worthy of status, though. She
considered “purple” for a second; shook her head.

She likes the green one.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And that’s that. Thanks for listening to me rant.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And Remember: It wasn’t until 1978 that a human had been
born on all seven continents — Emilio Marco Palma was
born that year in an Argentine military base in Antarctica.