What is the Next Big thing?

[Daniel ~]

What are we waiting for and why? Will the Mainboards/CPUs still lag behind the Video cards when it comes to bottle necks?

Where will the sweet spot be found and on what Video card(s). When will games be available to use the new horse power and features?

[Phil]

Hmm we've had hardware accelerated graphics, sound, even mice are now using the usb port because it gives a higher refesh rate or something making movement smoother, how about hardware accelerated keyboards, that can cope with the entire oxford english dictionairy being typed into it a second, just for those people that want to say 'even my keyboard is faster than yours'.

I think nvidia is gonna hit a wall soon, people won't continue to want the latest thing for ever, or be able to afford it the way they put the price up with each new card, how long till we're taking out graphics card loans I wonder, don't forget to ask about depreciation when buying one too

[dimmreaper]

The next big thing will be LCD monitors, prices will drop, increasing demand, increasing market size, prompting more competition to enter that market segment, causing prices to drop, further increasing demand, further increasing market size, prompting even more competition . . . . . . .


Why LCDs? They require less space, good if you rent office space in manhattan or other densely packed metropolises. They use less electricity, with a "small" workgroup of a few hundred machines it costs a whole lot of green to keep those CRT monitors lit. They look cool. They offer superior graphic quality. They are easier on the eyes. The list goes on and on. Who amongst us would not own one if they could afford one? Personally I like the 20" wide aspect ratio LCDs(1:2 instead of 3:4).

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if 5-10 years from now a new motherboard standard surfaced, a standard specifically intended for integrating motherboards in to LCD monitors. They might even come up with a new peripheral card slot in which the card is inserted on a 45 degree angle rather than the traditional 90 degree card slots.

I also think the legacy ports on PC motherboards will be phased out. Who even uses Parallel and Serial ports any more? Not many. A few people are still using the Game/Midi port, but it will be going soon too I think. I wouldn't be too surprised if they phased out PS2 sooner or later too.

[Superman]

I use parallel . My old printer doesn't have a USB connector.

[Kaitain]

Why stop at LCD?

Why not go the whole hog and have a wall-sized gas-plasma setup? Prices of those are falling pretty quickly as well (just looking at the one on the other side of the office - 60", schweet!)

Alternatively, if New Scientist is to be believed, then the sci-fi thing of having lasers project an image directly onto the retina is already being toyed with. True VR anybody?

[Spode]

projectors are getting pretty cheap. I'm getting mine on the 20th.

And there are new CRT displays that are supposedly better than LCD and just as thin coming soon.

[Áedán]

Originally posted by dimmreaper
They look cool. They offer superior graphic quality. They are easier on the eyes. The list goes on and on.

They have inferior colour reproduction, limited viewing angles and poorer contrast, not to mention colour shifts with age of the backlight, on top of the fact they're designed to operate at only one resolution.

I suspect that CRTs will reinvent themselves in flatscreen - There's already a number of designs on the flatscreen CRT with the same thickness as an LCD. Philips have a design that offers thinscreen CRT, using an indirect electron emitter. Someone else has a design that uses semiconductor points acting as electron emitters. Neither design needs the long distances to deflect the beam over. These are just two examples I know of - I'm sure there's more out there.

I also think the legacy ports on PC motherboards will be phased out. Who even uses Parallel and Serial ports any more? Not many. A few people are still using the Game/Midi port, but it will be going soon too I think. I wouldn't be too surprised if they phased out PS2 sooner or later too.

I still use parallel/serial ports. Parallel, because I find my printer works a lot better on it, and serial because it'll go long distances with little/no degredation.

The big problem with USB is the bandwidth stealing effect. Certainly with USB1 this is a problem if you have a USB DSL/Cable modem, USB speakers and USB keyboard/mouse. You may find that in times of limited bandwidth, the low bandwidth devices don't get serviced so often, so your keyboard/mouse stop responding as quickly...! USB1 also requires the CPU to poll all the devices on the bus to see if it requires servicing. At least with PS/2 the CPU gets interrupted when they keyboard/mouse is sending data.

No, I'm not against USB, but I do think it's a protocol that is designed to be as cheap as possible. It shows. (: OTOH, it's pretty easy to interface to USB when you're trying to build your own circuitry.

AidanII

[Áedán]

Originally posted by Kaitain
Alternatively, if New Scientist is to be believed, then the sci-fi thing of having lasers project an image directly onto the retina is already being toyed with. True VR anybody?

Why stop at VR? Why not use that same laser to improve your eyesight beyond the conventional? Now that'd be good. (;


AidanII

[Pinky]

Originally posted by Daniel ~
What are .... and features?

Wow! Daniel ~ starting a technology thread .

Rule 10. You must respond to Daniel's technology questions.

[mrpcman]

no more mouse...computer HOOKED UP TO THE BRAIN!!!!!!

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by AidanII

They have inferior colour reproduction, limited viewing angles and poorer contrast, not to mention colour shifts with age of the backlight, on top of the fact they're designed to operate at only one resolution.

I suspect that CRTs will reinvent themselves in flatscreen - There's already a number of designs on the flatscreen CRT with the same thickness as an LCD. Philips have a design that offers thinscreen CRT, using an indirect electron emitter. Someone else has a design that uses semiconductor points acting as electron emitters. Neither design needs the long distances to deflect the beam over. These are just two examples I know of - I'm sure there's more out there.

True LCDs aren't as good as they will be. But I still would take a high-res LCD over CRT any day of the week. There getting much better with every generation. The flat CRTs look nice too, but I havn't actually seen one myself, so I can't comment on there image quality.

Originally posted by AidanII

I still use parallel/serial ports. Parallel, because I find my printer works a lot better on it, and serial because it'll go long distances with little/no degredation.

The big problem with USB is the bandwidth stealing effect. Certainly with USB1 this is a problem if you have a USB DSL/Cable modem, USB speakers and USB keyboard/mouse. You may find that in times of limited bandwidth, the low bandwidth devices don't get serviced so often, so your keyboard/mouse stop responding as quickly...! USB1 also requires the CPU to poll all the devices on the bus to see if it requires servicing. At least with PS/2 the CPU gets interrupted when they keyboard/mouse is sending data.

No, I'm not against USB, but I do think it's a protocol that is designed to be as cheap as possible. It shows. (: OTOH, it's pretty easy to interface to USB when you're trying to build your own circuitry.

I wasn't making a statement for or against USB. I was just saying that something better will replace the current(very old) standards. I mean my 286 had parallel and serial ports, they just need to be phased out. Phasing out the old will put a few people in a rough spot, but it will open the doors to future standards. If push comes to shuve those using these old standards could always buy a $10-15 add-on card with the parallel and serial ports.

[Samuknow]

I am still thinking that the change needs to come from the mobo makers. Blazing fast vid cards and slow bus speeds. But then the Vid card makers need to up the supported bus speed on the card. If you look to see what the slowest part of a computer is I would have to say this is it. How often (b4 VIAs 1/2 AGP) did we hit the bus speed limit of a vid card. Vid cards are fast. Faster than the computer there on. Need to get the data there faster. I see this for a short term answer to performance.

[Spode]

I think the major limitation at the momment is harddrives (still).

Lets see what happens with the new ATA standard!

[Daniel ~]

Originally posted by Pinky


Wow! Daniel ~ starting a technology thread .

Rule 10. You must respond to Daniel's technology questions.

Only if you want me to continue to function....as opposed to falling into a crippling sulk from which I may not emerge for days....even weeks.

Hey! I'm still getting over my "Are we your home page?" post in which far to many were truthful rather than, shall we say, diplomatic LOL

[mrpcman]

Originally posted by Daniel ~
Only if you want me to continue to function....as opposed to falling into a crippling sulk from which I may not emerge for days....even weeks.

Hey! I'm still getting over my "Are we your home page?" post in which far to many were truthful rather than, shall we say, diplomatic LOL

wouldn't you rather have honesty?

[Daniel ~]

Originally posted by mrpcman


wouldn't you rather have honesty?

OH HELL NO! LOL

[Kaitain]

but I havn't actually seen one myself, so I can't comment on there image quality.

There are a couple at work here. Very smart-looking and leave a lot of desk-space free. Image quality is a bit washed-out and there's a sort of diagonal ripple thing going on as the graphics card's tick doesn't quite match what the screen can manage. It's still vastly better than the dual-scan lcd screen I had on a laptop about 6 years ago.

[Áedán]

Originally posted by Kaitain

There are a couple at work here. Very smart-looking and leave a lot of desk-space free. Image quality is a bit washed-out and there's a sort of diagonal ripple thing going on as the graphics card's tick doesn't quite match what the screen can manage.

Yeah, the pixel shimmering is one thing I really hate about LCD monitors using an analog input. I don't know if it's clock jitter from the LCD or clock jitter from the Graphics card or both, but it's really annoying. Using a digital interface instead corrects this problem! Alas, you then have to have a gfx card that has digital out as well.

I'd love to have the deskspace, but I don't think it's worth the restrictions of an LCD monitor... (;

AidanII