A Productive Desktop Environment for Scientists and Engineers - Part IV

Lost Worlds on Desktop

When we were kids, there was a time we referred to the computers as electronic brains; and though we had not seen a one for real, we revered the concept. After all we were brought up in the world of HAL 9000 and R2-D2 and believed that in just a few years passing the Turing test will be peanuts for the real-world computers. Well... the reality? Twenty odd years has passed and computers are nowhere near the level of doing intelligent things. Strong AI claims of the eighties and nineties were basically flops (though in science we can never claim that something will not be invented in the future).

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Had everything was disappointing and boring about computers? Well...they certainly did not live up to our expectations, but at the same time they helped us achieve an entirely different set of tools and skills that we never expected from them. Who thought the computer will be the centerpiece of a communication revolution which allows us to write a letter, post it to a destination halfway around the globe and get the reply withing a few minitues. Or did we imagine that computers in Japan will show on their screen what is stored in a library of the United States? Do we appreciate the fact that the most basic

Since around 1996 I was using my own 'personal' computer.