Often attributed (erroneously) to Kenneth Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Source investigation: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/14/home-computer/

Funny, people said something similar decades ago but it was more like "the only consumers they appeal to are those that aren't technically savvy enough to build their own."

I think this is a correct statement, for the reason that what was once a enthusiast activity (using computers) becomes a necessity, and tolerance of problems reduces drastically when your life/salary depends on it working flawlessly.

Imagine saying these things about a dishwasher? Who’d care if the circuitry driving the buttons controlling the pumps etc is proprietary and e waste when it’s dead.

The quote was "640K", and Bill Gates probably didn't actually say it, at least not in a general context, vs "... to run MS-DOS and Visicalc" or similar.

I guess the author had never died of dysentery or been eaten by a grue.

> (which raised another troubling question: if you were going to end up spending that much money, why not just buy an Apple to begin with?).

Some things never change.

  “I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
  “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”

It's a little funny and a little sad, but this is as true today as it was back then, but for different reasons.

Wow, that statement reeks of having so much privilege it’s like you forgot that this isn’t financially feasible for a lot of people, and that upgrading down the line allowed someone to afford a lower spec computer at the time.

Like - you do get not everyone’s wealthy af, yeah? And that companies intentionally bloat the cost of first party memory and stuff so that if you’re not insanely privileged; like I guess you are, then, no - it’s not even…it doesn’t even make sense.

All this does is steal from the poor to give to the rich.

If you get the best, and keep it for a while then even though it won't be bleeding edge anymore it'll still be in the middle of mediocre.

When it comes to computers, mediocre is actually pretty usable. A $600 computer can do pretty much everything, including handling normal scale non-enterprise software development. I didn't really realize it until I went back to school for science, but many projects are bound by the capacity of your mind and not the speed of your CPU.

If I do need computing power, I use a desktop.

That's exactly what this is an argument for. It's also an argument for programmers to accomodate this.

That's not my lament. I don't care at all about not wasting processing power.

I care about the fact that it's so difficult for people to use their existing computers in ways that were not intended by their manufacturers, that even technically adept people will just buy a new computer rather than deal with it.

It should be easy to install some new software on any of your computers (router or desktop or TV or phone or whatever) and have it do some useful new thing. But it's not.

You are VASTLY underestimating the planning/engineering/marketing/design/fabrication/logistics/etc. that a multi-billion dollar company undertakes to bring a new product to market, especially one whose brand is built (in large part) on design. Just rolling out something we've seen before isn't going to happen and even then it's not something that could happen quickly.

It's really just that simple.

When you read it back, it sounds silly to expect any company to make products that ever fit this criteria. Except expensive ones, of course, which maximize profits in their own way.

I'm not so sure this is true. What kind of company would produce reliable hardware that you could maintain over decades? Where's the money in making something that high quality?

I think that is some kind of fallacy. We are doing the same things but the quality of those things is vastly different. I collect vintage computers and I think you'd be surprised how limited we were while doing the same things. I wouldn't want to go back.

Although I will say your experience with Windows is different than mine. On all my machines, regardless of specs, start up is fast so the point where I don't even think about it.

Yup. Sure, I like to tinker with things sometimes.

But I don't, for example, particularly appreciate spending half a day yak shaving with a computer just to get it to the state where I can actually use it for the task I actually set out to do.

About a year ago, I decided I should have a working Windows computer for games and the occasional other Windowsy thing I want to do. My first thought was to upgrade one of my home-built systems. Instead I ended up just buying a big laptop on sale because I more or less to myself that I know how to build computers. But I don't especially want to in this case. I just want a relatively compact computer I can use for some specific tasks.

Yes, for those of us who mostly want the appliance, but sometimes want to tweak it. I don't want to have to build a system from the ground up to get my desired experience if it's 98% the same as the appliance would have been out of the box; I'd much rather start from the appliance and just change the 2%.

OMG, so very much this!

The problem is that there was a very brief period of time in the early days of the development of the computer (by which I mean like 1975-1995 or so) when just about everything new was an improvement. That implanted the idea in people's heads that NEW==GOOD because it was (mostly) true for about 20 years. But nowadays technology has matured and it is no longer invariably true. I have a five-year-old MacBook pro running Mavericks that I much prefer to anything on the market today.

Did you ever notice computer manufacturers playing on specs and retina to sell their products? That is pure dick waving. It's everywhere.