Computers Classes That Conform To The Law
As of 2010, the computer classes include:
- mainframes (1960s)
- minicomputers (1970s) These are essentially replaced by clusters of PCs.
- personal computers and workstations evolving into a network enabled by Local Area Networking or Ethernet (1980s)
- web browser client-server structures enabled by the Internet (1990s)
- web services, e.g. Microsoft's .NET (2000s) or the Grid
- small form-factor devices such as cell phones and other cell phone sized devices (CPSD), e.g. BlackBerries, iPods, iPhones, Smartphones, and Trēos (c. 2000)
- Wireless Sensor Networks, aka motes (c. >2005)
As of 2005, Bell believes i.e. is betting that CPSDs will form a dominant computer class or platform measured by units and revenue. These evolve from the phone and PDA functions to include new "killer applications" yet to be determined. Furthermore, CPSDs will substitute for many PC's functions (e.g. email, web browsing). Use will evolve, with or without attachments (e.g. keyboards, displays for document creation, presentations), to include almost all of the PC's functions except large file stores for video content.
Beginning in the 1990s, a single class of scalable computers or mega-servers, built from clusters of a few to tens of thousands of commodity microcomputer-storage-networked bricks, began to cover and replace mainframes, minis, and workstations to become the largest computers of the day, or what is commonly called a supercomputer.
Read more about this topic: Bell's Law Of Computer Classes
Famous quotes containing the words classes, conform and/or law:
“There were three classes of inhabitants who either frequent or inhabit the country which we had now entered: first, the loggers, who, for a part of the year, the winter and spring, are far the most numerous, but in the summer, except for a few explorers for timber, completely desert it; second, the few settlers I have named, the only permanent inhabitants, who live on the verge of it, and help raise supplies for the former; third, the hunters, mostly Indians, who range over it in their season.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Working mothers are just as likely to want to conform to a standard of perfection—and just as likely to suffer from their failure to meet it—as their stay-at-home counterparts.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“No. I am not the law in your mind,
the grandfather of watchfulness.
I am the law of your members,
the kindred of blackness and impulse.
See. Your hand shakes.
It is not palsy or booze.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)