Caught In |
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by Al Massey |
"View from the HelpDesk: User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?"
This fall for some reason I have been busy with speaking engagements regarding the state of the Internet. Everyone it seems wants to know more about the `Net, its history and where it is headed. For the most part I enjoy these meetings and usually get more out of them than I put into them but I am becoming alarmed at a growing trend. Everywhere I turn there is someone from the bandwidth police warning that the "pipe" is closing and we are running out of bandwidth.
Trouble is, when I ask them to describe bandwidth they are hard pressed to do so. Even more troubling, at least from my perspective, is that I am growing tired and bored with this entire bandwidth conversation. You see I have been listening to this argument for far too many years and it is a false argument. If I had to settle on one thing that sets my hair on fire I would have to choose between bandwidth and throughput over copper twisted pairs (your common old garden variety telephone line).
This bandwidth argument as it relates to the Internet has never been a technical problem. A legal problem maybe; an economic problem certainly; but never a technical problem. I watch in wide-eyed wonder as creative minds tackle this so-called problem. Truth is we have gone from a "theoretical bandwidth" of some 30,000 users per line to a practical utilization of millions of simultaneous conversations per line. We've laid so much glass in this country the last few years I expect Sixty Minutes to point out it's bad for our health.
Yesterday, or sometime in the last twenty years, I attended a conference where it was explained to me in agonizing detail that we had reached the upper limits of modem speeds at 110 bps. Various schemes were used to attain this blazing speed and none of them were interoperable. A few months later, another conference, and Bell announced 300 bps with their 103a standard. Then in short order Dennis Hayes developed a real 300 baud modem for the PC, truly interoperable, with control though the serial port allowing access from the keyboard with AT commands. WOW! Butbut, this is REALLY the absolute upper limit, can't really expect any higher, and besides even if it were possible, the telephone lines couldn't handle the load.
Well you know the rest of the story, 1200, 2400, 9600, 14,400, 19.2, 28.8. With each leap it was positively, absolutely the highest, biggest, fastest and the telcos were right there to say the POTS (Plain old telephone service) was overloaded and DON'T expect any faster speeds. Can't happen we were told. I still have Press Releases from each upgrade saying can't get any faster. Yeah! Right!
I've heard it said that the entire evolution of MODulator/DEModulator (modem) was a fool's errand and I couldn't agree more. This idea of converting digital bits and bytes into analog signals for transmission over an audio medium is crazy at best. It never has been very impressive that we could transmit data at speeds of 1200-28.8 bps. What has been impressive is that we are able to do it over voice grade telephone lines.
Then along came the 56Kbps digital line. The telco, including SW Bell, jumped on this and made it available to business and anyone else that needed high-speed access. I was an early user and it cost astronomically. Not just the line but the equipment. The concept of pricing this service to make it available for a large number of users never entered the mind of SW Bell for even a second. In fact they set about trying to outlaw the use of modems on regular telephone lines and force folks to use digital, dedicated lines priced in the stratosphere. More than one BBS went belly up rather than fight over this issue. Don't use modems over voice grade lines, they said, implying you were cheating them if you did.
Well now we are full circle and bandwidth is again being held hostage by the telcos. Entering into the fray are the cable companies announcing speeds of up to 10Mbps (actually they are getting around 5Mbps in trials) and here comes SW Bell to tell us that we can expect astonishing speeds of up to 12-30Mbps through the use of ADSL as early as next year. All this over your POTS line! You know, the same one that wasn't capable of 14.4. Gee, and I thought wizards were dead. More on this subject next month.
"More from the HelpDesk: Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, "Well, it works for me." Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer..."
Every so often a product finds its way into the `Puter Pit that is so handy and revolutionary that Boss Hog just refuses to `pute without it. Such is the case with GyroPoint, a new mouse from Gyration. Using the same gyroscope technology that keeps airplanes level and ships on course GyroPoint has given new meaning to the words point and click.
Gyropoint combines the freedom of a TV remote control with the functionality of a conventional mouse allowing the user to kick back, point and click their way around the desktop or web from anywhere in the room. With the number of presentations and demos I give each month this little device is rapidly becoming indispensable and I vow the only way you will keep me from using it will be to pry it out of my cold, dead hand. I took it to the Build or Buy a PC SIG the other day to show it off. GyroPoint Mouse from Gyration, Inc. Available at computer stores everywhere for under $60.
"More from the HelpDesk: Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason. Return to napping."
In early August, on a lonely mountain top in Colorado a friend of everyone who has enjoyed the pleasures of the online world passed away. No one will ever be able to comprehend the demons that possessed Tim Stryker to take his life but those of us that have read his book "Think a Little" can guess. In the pages of "Think a Little," Stryker explored his ideas about the future of civilization and technology and laid the groundwork for what he termed Reality Avoidance Syndrome - the tendency for people to deny unpleasant aspects of objective reality. It was Stryker's hope that by recognizing and dispelling RAS we could be more successful at truly making this world a better place. Using the profits from the book he established the Superdemocracy Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing several of the book's key ideas, including electronic democracy and a networked "reference exchange." Most of you, particularly those that have ever engaged in an online game or dialed up a bulletin board, have come in contact with Stryker's work. From his kitchen table on July 4, 1985 Stryker launched Galacticomm and The Major BBS, his most notable achievement. Rest easy Stryker, I shall see you again, soon.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member and can be reached at almas@hal-pc.org/.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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