Re: more about serious

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On Sat, 06 Nov 1999, Norm wrote:
.....
> It is just my opinion,
> personal and professional business-wise, that the use of programming
> language directed towards PCs of all types, has hit its high-water mark, and
> will soon become second-tier to the combined might of other, lesser thought
> of devices.  If one looks at the total amount of memory sold right now,
> embedded devices take the cake.  This will only accelerate over the next few
> years.  Consoles (game machines) are a case in point.  The Sega Dreamcast,
> for example, is a proper 128 bit machine (64 X 2 data; 128 X 1 graphics),
> and has a two proper operating systems.  One of these is Windows CE, said by
> it's Master to be especially tweaked for the Sega box.  The other OS is
> Sega's own primitive Game OS, though it still is a legitimate system... <snip>

I think someone has overlooked the number one consideration here:
Game boxes, even if they are capable of keeping up with a Cray, are
not going to replace the generic IBM or MAC.  Why? First of all, because it's in
the best  interest of the game machine's makers to _change_ the guts every
couple of years. Partly in order to take advantage of better and faster
hardware, but mainly to create a market for new games, which is where the
profit lies. So you'll be in a constant re-write mode. With an up-front cost of
$28,000,  you'll have to sell a lot of copies of your programming language/os to
break even. OTOH, I don't _need_ a multi-thousand dollar license to design
programs for the pc or the mac.  And programs I wrote 12 years ago still run on
a new pc.  A lot of effort has been put into "compatability" in the pc world.

Regards,
Irv

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