February 18, 2005, 11:46 AM — The kids are watching the movie 'Honey, I shrunk the kids' for the twelve millionth time. I am sitting close to the TV, typing these words into a nifty little PDA pretending not to be watching the movie with one eye.
It has been pointed out by others[1] that Rick Moranis looks like a young Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python). There is a certain likeness but not much in my opinion.
Shrinkage is on my mind today. It occurs to me that shrinkage of computers - a phenomenon occurring all around us - is more than just making things smaller. The more interesting shrinkages to me are the ones that play games with the very definition of a computer. Psychological shrinkages.
Pretend for a moment that you know next to nothing about computers and how they work. I introduce you to a green screen terminal and tell you it is the computer. In a way I'm right. In a way, I'm wrong.
I introduce you to an X-Terminal and tell you it is the computer. Same story there. I introduce you to a PC but teach you to use a Web Browser. Is the PC the computer in this case? Yes and no.
I hand you a card for a Sun Ray[2] and tell you the card is your computer because it knows all about you. You just need to plug it into a Sun Ray terminal to do your work. Which is the computer? The card or the Sun Ray? Finally, just as you are becoming too frazzled to take any more, I hand you a Mac Mini[3] and tell you to just fish out a keyboard, mouse and monitor from somewhere.
You stare at the rectangular card for the Sun Ray and the rectangular block for the Mac Mini. You wonder to yourself how long it will be before they are both the same physical size. You further wonder what the difference between the two really is.
As all you knowledgeable computing types out there know, the difference between the two is real today but will it be real tomorrow? Terms like 'computer' and 'terminal' are becoming ever more nebulous.
My take on things is that as computers get more connected and develop more dependencies on external peripherals, a standalone computer will become more like a temporary assembly than a permanent fixture.
The computer is not only shrinking, it is exploding into pieces.
[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=rick+moranis+guido+van+rossum&btnG=Search
[2] http://www.sun.com/sunray/sunray100/index.xml
[3] http://www.apple.com/macmini/
