If you have the Christmas urge to splurge, I can think of no better time in the computer industry to RESIST.
 

Right now the advertising folks are working overtime to convince you that you NEED that new computer this Christmas; not Valentine's Day, not the 4th of July, but NOW! This is, of course, perpetual, seeing how we live in a true blue capitalist state. And it could also be said to be perpetual that waiting to buy a new computer will always yield you a computer that is more advanced than the one that you could have bought with the same money a year earlier.

The reason I am counseling people to leave their hard earned bucks in the bank is that there are some really AMAZING new technologies coming down the trail that are significant enough changes in the way that computers work and interact with us that they justify bearing with our outmoded hardware a little while longer. My contact at COMDEX (the big-o computer exposition that makes a Moonie mass wedding look like an intimate gathering) gave me some tips and places to watch and I have checked these out for your benefit.

The first big jump that needs to be made isn't a faster CPU or greater plunges in RAM pricing, it is getting rid of the @&*$%! vacuum tube you stare at to do your work. For all of the Sci-Fi leaps into the future of computing power, we are still using a technological relic that dates from the glory days of Flash Gordon as our primary interface with the computer. This is akin to developing the Porsche 969 and leaving the Ford Model A's solid rubber wheels on it. Crazy, but hey…this is technology: No place for wimps.

Toshiba has finally perfected the technology to relieve us of the burden of having three electron guns pointed at our glowing faces: Liquid Crystal Displays. The LCD panels that are in the laptop you tote around have been an excellent test bed for Toshiba to perfect the use of large screen LCDs. These beauties allow higher resolutions at a cheaper price while using vastly less power with no annoying flicker of refresh frequency to have to worry about. Better yet, Toshiba has solved the problem of LCD latency (the tendency for the LCD to respond slowly when changing on/off states) by changing the rules: the LCD pixels no longer display brightness by turning on and off, but by changing polarity and voltage states. By flipping between red, green or blue, the picture stays updated the same way your TV does, but faster and more clearly.

Next are the additions to the data communications realm. The two big partners here are the Universal Serial Bus and FireWire, the IEEE 1394 serial protocol pioneered by Apple Computers.

USB gets rid of that snare of wires hanging off of the back of your computer going to your peripherals. So instead of figuring out which port your USB compliant scanner, mouse, keyboard, joystick, and vibrating armpit rest go in, you just plug them in daisy chain style: computer to keyboard, keyboard to scanner, and the joystick and mouse hung off the scanner. Mix and match: it doesn't matter if they are all installed in a single line or like a ring or like a tree. And unlike the SCSI protocol that hits its ceiling at 7 devices, USB lets you host up to 127 devices on ONE USB port on the back of your computer. (Your computer room might look like an audiophile's basement, but you could do it. I don't recommend it because wives are notoriously unimpressed with the notion of doing things "just because you can.")

Even better, you can finally ditch all of your bulky AC cords hanging off of the back of your computer: USB carries its power with it, so all of the external peripherals get their power down the same wire that carries the data. USB also boasts 12Mbps data transfer bandwidth, as well as the ability to "hot swap" devices you have plugged in (that is, plug in your armpit rest when the computer is running and have the Operating System recognize it.) This makes standards like Plug and Play more of a reality and less of a Microsoft line of bull.

Best of all, USB is no more expensive for peripheral manufacturers to implement than their current technology. Cost to you: the same as buying the old stuff. Benefit to you? Convenience and BANG-ZOOM performance!

USB's complimentary pal is the FireWire spec. This bus interface (like PCI or VLB or ISA) will do essentially the same thing as USB, only MUCH faster (hence the name.) But seeing as how you don't need a 100Mbps connection to your keyboard, FireWire will be used mostly to connect with other computers or with video peripherals that crave the higher speed. You won't use USB or FireWire interchangeably; they are designed for different purposes.

Certainly the big question is: WHEN? The answer: Sooner than you think! I recently upgraded my CPU and motherboard to a Cyrix P150+ and a Triton III chipset. Surprise, surprise: the USB controller was ALREADY on the motherboard: all I needed to do was buy the port itself and plug it into the motherboard. Now I don't have any USB compliant devices, but I'm ready when they get here. I expect it to take about 2 years for the conversion to complete itself, or about the same amount of time it took to go from 5.25 to 3.5 inch diskettes. But with Intel and Microsoft pushing the standard, there is no question of whether or not it is going to happen.

Toshiba's LCD Monitors may happen quickly, but the jury is still out: Price, reliability and industry acceptance are big factors, the latter being more significant than you might think. You see, the television industry has kept their technology different from computer monitors intentionally, as they don't want the TV to be replaced with the computer. Now Toshiba has come along with a practical solution to this separation and I don't expect the TV industry to be very welcoming.

Finally, keep in mind that improvements in technology do come in spurts. We spent 10 years with Intel's x86 chipset before the Pentium came along. Pentium and its' derivatives will be around for awhile yet. I typically buy about 10 months behind whatever is the "latest and greatest" so that I am assured of running 95% of the software, without paying 95% of the original price. Capitalism has its advantages for the consumer: we have increased our computing power by orders of magnitude in just a few short years and continue to push the boundaries of speed. Hopefully we will learn to communicate something at that speed that is worth hearing.

Peace on Earth,

Webwalker