#understanding: IT   #whatever

The rise and fall of the beige box

June 2, 2006

Jack PC pic

There was a time(for the ones old enough to remember) when not a single desk in the world was equipped with a Computer. Then came the Mainframe Terminal, just to be extinct shortly after by the Personal Computer shortly after. And soon, every office desk in the world was topped with a beige computer box, ugly as hell, but seemingly unstoppable from conquering every inch of our living spaces. Moms and Dads suddenly sitting behind huge an Cathod Ray Screens, with a beige PC Tower next to them. Then came the laptop, first a sign for higher ranking executive, but slowly but surely trickling down the career ladder down to even the most basic employees. Today schoolchildren are receiving their homeworks as Powerpoints by email and MIT's Negroponte started the one laptop per child project.

Now see the image! In some years from now, the PC will be gone. Invisible, we will be free again. Computer will be where we want theme, when we want them. And most of the time we don't want them where they are. And the cables will disappear as well. Strange, the once omnipresent computer is threatened with visual extinction.

The beige box has fallen.
cheers

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