Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 12/89 - checked

December 1989

Where does one draw the line about all this technology stuff, and exactly what line does one draw?

This may seem like one of those open-ended posers that slip in at the end of Any Questions?, but there is a real question to be answered here, and we could all feel the end result of the wrong answer.

I will give a 'for instance' of the problems I can see coming: I suspect that most of us can think of similar events.

When recently up in London I found myself near to somewhere interesting, with the best part of an hour to kill. The somewhere interesting was the National Portrait Gallery, and that was where I decided to do justice to the hour in question.

I found myself a quiet corner and sat down. Out came the trusty Z88 (the journalist's friend) and a small bit of writing was commenced. To my surprise, I was suddenly accosted by a Jobsworth, who uttered the classic words, "you can't do that in here". The reason was quite mundane.

I could not use the Z88 in the gallery because the Gallery is not 'an office'; "if we allowed you to work here, we'd have every one from the City of London working here too," was Jobsworth's position on the matter.

I have to admit that my initial reaction was to think that it would probably do the lackeys of Mammon a bit of good to work in somewhere like the National Gallery, rather than the steel'n'glass chicken coops they normally occupy. With the benefit of hindsight, however, Jobsworth's point contained a measure of sense; do we want somewhere both interesting and tranquil (a fast-fading commodity) messed up by people working in it?

Technology being what it is, our world is continuously inundated with smaller yet more powerful versions of its products, allowing their exploitation in an ever wider range of places. For example, I am writing this, on the Z88, on the train into London. Am I disturbing the people opposite? do they care? do they think I'm a technology poser?

Certainly some people are just that. We have all seen the poserphone user walking down the street, frantically jawing into the mouthpiece and walking into lamp posts, or driving down the M1 trying to match their speed to breaks in the conversation, so that they don't miss vital bits while going under the bridges.

Such instruments can be considered as yuppie toys for now. But as they get more prevalent will they and their users just become a nuisance to everyone else?. And how much should that nuisance be balanced against convenience? In the end analysis the telephone, despite its many drawbacks, is a damned useful instrument, one of the better things which technology has spawned.

Can the same thing be said for a laptop computer? As a regular user of one, my answer has to be yes, but is there a limit to where and how they should be used? I can certainly see Jobsworth's point about filling the National to the brim with city types, but then again, if they worked in the National it might give some a better perspective on life than can be gained solely from the numerology of Mammon.

Whatever one thinks of machines such as the Atari Portfolio or the up-coming Poqet machine as specific implementations of PC technology, there is no denying the trend they represent. By the year 2000 it will be technically possible to stick half a dozen 386 processors down together on a single chip. Alternatively, a single 386 or 486 with 8 Mbytes of memory and all the bits needed for ISDN-standard communications via cellphone nodes could be a possible option.

Pocket-sized computers will not only be possible, they could well become an integral part of most peoples' lives; not only as the standard 'tool of the trade' for the average office worker in any industry or business, but just about everyone else too.

It will be possible to sit anywhere and work on the computer, communicating by voice and/or data to anyone or anything else. The latter could be the most significant part of all. Imagine being able to sit in the National, admiring Constable's 'The Haywain', while waiting for your laptop to finish its SQL enquiry on a database in Tokyo.

There is no major technical obstacle to this happening now, so by the year 2000 the technology could easily realise a range of commodity-products of this type with an equivalent price of £300-£400.

Questions of what such products might look like are one issue (you may remember the ideas put forward in the PCW Workslate designed for last year's PC Show). Perhaps more important is the question of what effect such machines might have not only on our working lives, but also our leisure.

There is an attitude, increasingly prevalent here, that we are destined only to work (usually for someone else's advantage). Good old Calvinist stuff that it is this attitude, coupled with technology, has an inherent danger.

It could mean that, as technology expands the scope of its utilisation, so the number of ways in which Mammon may expect us to exploit such 'advantages' on its behalf will also expand. If we have a computer plus poserphone plus modem in our pockets, will Mammon expect us to use it, regardless of where we happen to be, or what day of the week it is?

There can certainly be advantages in this. The flexibility to work where and when one feels best disposed can bring forth the best results from people. But the downside of this might be the demand of Mammon on individuals to work in that way, regardless of time, location or inconvenience to themselves and others.

I already know of people who use a poserphone in the 'smallest room', just in case they miss something important. Will the fully waterproof 'bathtop' computer be next, and will Mammon demand we have one, just in case?

end