Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing (2011)
I like the essay but it fails to realize the goal posts are not fixed on the field. General purpose computing is alive and well and cheaper than ever, you can build the equivalent of a PC/AT for about $50 in parts.<p>What Cory misses is that when we were building CP/M machines and IBM PC clones, there already was a big pile of computers that were locked down so that somebody else could make money off of you using them. I went to school at a time when you were allocated a fixed number of kilocoreseconds (kilowords of core you could occupy on the big computer charged on a per second rate) and I had my kit Z80 system and felt very superior.<p>Computers got more powerful and now the one that was sold to you has the more than the capabilities than the one where it was already proven you could extract value for using it, so people continue to extract that value. And when their extraction is sidestepped, they work with computer makers and software makers to regain the upper hand. The goal posts moved.<p>What has also happened is that the backbone of what used to be the "personal computer" market was people who were more fascinated with the computers themselves than with the software they might run on them. The manufacturers worked to appeal to the tool users, the architects, engineers, and others who understood the value of computation for their job and so they were willing to invest for the right tools. There are a <i>lot</i> more of those people then nerds who like computers. The goal posts moved.<p>Today's "computer" market is not really about computers, its about a platform for consuming digital products. Whether it is entertainment, or navigation, or gaming. That you could run a compiler on that thing and make new programs that it could run is nearly incidental (and certainly insignificant) to the market who buys it. The goal posts moved.<p>We have reached the point where general purpose computers are these $35 and $50 things for people interested in computers and for no one else. Even when people try to push them that way.<p>I don't believe there is an assault on general purpose computers, what is happening is that thing you called a computer before is what back in the day we called a TV and a telephone and a radio and a record player, except all in one package that runs all day in your pocket. It has a computer <i>in it</i> but it isn't a <i>computer</i> in the original sense of general purpose computing. There are lots of general purpose computers, and there are now FPGAs that are easily loaded with general purpose computation. You just can't run gcc on your TV.