To turn off engine, press ''start''
By Charles Miller

Every time I hear someone complaining about the high cost of computers, it takes me aback, no matter how many times it happens. The public seems to suffer collective amnesia when it comes to acknowledging how precipitously prices have fallen since personal computers came into being.

In the 1970s one of my clients paid over US$30,000 for an IBM “word processing system” to automate the creating, editing and printing of documents in his law office. The hardware was a massive cabinet half the size of a refrigerator, but even then did not include a spell-checker. I believe the next version he bought a few years later cost only US$14,000 and it did have a spell checker.

It came as no surprise to me that three decades after paying those prices, this same client groused over having to pay a relative pittance of only a few hundred dollars each to replace the computers in his law office.

A story floats around the internet about a speech given by Bill Gates and the response it provoked from General Motors. The story is fictitious, an urban legend and a complete fabrication, but it makes for a good joke and is worth quoting here.

Bill Gates allegedly compared the pace of innovation and falling prices in the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon and cost $25.”

In response, General Motors supposedly issued a press release stating if they had developed automotive technology like Microsoft developed computer technology, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

Sometimes executing a common maneuver, something you had done hundreds of times before, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to remove and reinstall the engine.

The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.

GM would require all car buyers to purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50 percent or more.

Every time the lines were repainted on the highways, everyone would have to buy a new car.

Every time GM introduced a new model, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

And when you learned how to drive one car, for example a Ford, you would find that left you completely unprepared to drive a Chevrolet or any other make.

The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before going off.

To turn off the engine, you would press the “start” button.

Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, more reliable, faster and much easier to drive, but it could only be driven on two percent of the roads.

Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044-415-101-8528 or email FAQ7@SMAguru.com.