The Most Incorrect Assumptions In Computing?

Miss Muis writes "After reading once again that Moore's Law will become obsolete, I amused myself thinking back to all the predictions, absolutes and impossibles in computing that have been surpassed with ease. In the late 80s I remember it being a well regarded popular 'fact' that 100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU. Not too many years later I remember much discussion about hard drives for personal computers being physically unable to go much higher than 1GB. Let's not forget "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" from the chairman of IBM in 1943, and of course 'Apple is dying...' (for the past 25 years). What are your favorite beliefs-turned-on-their-heads in the history of computing?"

Bill Gates once said...

[eaglebtc]

"We'll never need more than 640K of RAM!"

Isn't it interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it interesting that all of these "limits" are convenient base-10 numbers? Seems something like the odometer effect to me.

the list

[grub]

640K is enough for anyone. (that one was easy)

This Internet thing is a fad.

No one will want to look at a man stretching his bottom wide open.

RAM

[Ty_Webb]

I swear, this will be the last batch of RAM I'll ever need...

Obligatory Simpsonism

[Raul654]

...I predict that within 100 years computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them. --Prof Frink, Much Apu About Nothing

Video hardware...

[kneecarrot]

How about the assumption that my $500 graphics card will last at least until next year.

Right...

My favorite lie

[IGnatius T Foobar]

And one I hope to see laughed at soon...

"Linux will never make it on the desktop"

My favorite

[mrpuffypants]

My favorite bad product assumption is right in its title:

Microsoft Works

Incorrect

[IANAL(BIAILS)]

The whole "Apple is doomed" senerio seems to keep coming up despite never actually living up to promise...

my personal favorite

[kurosawdust]

people will be thankful to have a anthropomorphic paperclip tell them what to do.

Picking up chicks

[ThomasFlip]

Flashing my dual 2.0 ghz g5 hasn't gotten me laid yet, I guess I was wrong !

How about...

[r_j_prahad]

Slashdot - News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters?

#1 on the list

[phillymjs]

"Windows is the best OS because the most people use it."

~Philly

There have been some real humdingers...

[gklinger]

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, Chairman, IBM

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corporation

Or my personal favorite...

"Trust me, this is way better than OS/2." - The dude at Computer City that sold me my copy of WIndows 95. Bastard.

How about

[IthnkImParanoid]

....the assumption that people will pay $500 for hardware that will be obsolete in a year?

oh, wait....

100MHz was the absolute limit

[Anonymous Coward]

100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU

Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.

SCO tells it like it is

[morpheus98]

"SCO will remain on course to require customers to license infringing Linux implementations as a condition of further use." 8/7/2003

Ken Olson of DEC

[DickBreath]

"Why would anyone want a computer in their home?" -- Ken Olson of DEC in late 1970's regarding personal computers.

or something to that effect.


"Whereas computers today weigh 1 ton and require 18,000 vaccum tubes, computers in the future will weigh only 1/2 ton and have under 1,000 vaccum tubes." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949.

Re:My favorite

[agwis]

The topic is assumptions, not oxymorons :-)

Re:download

[haystor]

Demonstrate with a beer.

Upload it to the refrigerator.

Download it from the refrigerator.

Install it.

Uninstall it.

.com bubble is sustainable...

[CHaN_316]

and given enough venture capital, an internet start up will be super profitable on the internet even though it has never made a profit, and doesn't have a sound business plan, and has a super inflated stock price.

But, it does have a great shiny mission statement:

"It's our responsibility to synergistically provide access to world-class sources as well as to assertively facilitate enterprise-wide opportunities" - Dilbert Mission Statment Generator [dilbert.com]

(Stock brokers in a flurry) BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY!

Dying ...?

[MikeCapone]

So now that Apple uses *BSD, is it dying twice as fast?

Yes but

[dorfsmay]

Apple has now switch to a BSD system, and everybody knows that BSD is dead. So Apple should be doubly dead very soon...

not computers,

[stylerm]

Its not computers, but in the early 1900, or maybe late 1800, it was believed that the human brain couldnt process all the information necessary to travel over 35 mph. And if you did travel faster than that speed you would go insane. Its a good thing that we have cell phones now, so we can drive whit out abosorbing insane amounts of information from the road.

Re:My Personal Favorite...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can hide links very well too!

Will this link [tinyurl.com] take you to a picture of a widely stretched bottom hole, a girl covered in brown and yellow substance, or something more soothing?

Only clicking will tell!

Re:Dying ...?

[wed128]

ahh the slashdot troll...

modded down untill it becomes a cliche, then modded up untill it becomes annoying, at which point it will be modded down again...

the cycle of life...

Re:Picking up chicks

[IthnkImParanoid]

Man, you can't flash your processor; you flash your BIOS. Hot girls just laugh at guys that don't know the difference. OTOH, if you drop some words like "petabyte," "firewire," and "jump drive" you'll drive them wild. Just don't bring up floppies or teraflops and you'll do okay.

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[the web]

Taken from the Wired Article attributed above.

"Meanwhile, I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough..."

Hmm....looks like he said it atleast once. Flaimbait....check

Modems.

[bellers]

I remember when I was using a Hayes Smartmodem 300 on my C-64 to dial a BBS up in the 80's, I talked to my sysop friend about some scientists who were working on a 9600-baud modem. My friend was shocked and incredulous:

ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR MINDS?! THE PHONE LINES WILL BURN UP!

Re:Storage Space

[grub]

Indeed. In 1982 I had a BBS running on an Apple ][+ with 2x 143K floppies. In '84 I bought a 10 MB hard drive for the BBS and thought "Holy moly.. I'll never fill this up.."

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[WTFRUDOINBiotch]

In a related story, Microsoft today announced a $17 Million investment in Wired.com.

My Mac Friend...

[Doc Squidly]

I have a Mac friend who say his G5 is "faster than the Internet" becuase everytime he opens his browser he gets "a page not found messege" and has to hit the refresh button.
I keep on telling him that its just a bug and his computer isn't faster than his broadband connection. But, he doesn't beleive me.

You'll go blind!

[wanab12]

With all the porn on the internet, you'd think there would be a lot more blind men around.

1999 called...

[Anonymous Coward]

And they'd like their joke back.

Re:640K--not true

[pete-classic]

Maybe he said that, maybe he didn't.

But he definitely wrote (or at least took the "credit" for writing):

The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.

in "The Road Ahead".

-Peter

Re:Thankfully, your link debunks it too.

[-Grover]

Would most of the planet know about it today without his help? Doubtful

I think I just found my new favorite!!!

THANKS!

Re:the list

[grub]

CB doesn't have the visual impact of the net. Take the following exchance:

CB Prankster on 19 "Breaker one-nine"
CB Victim on 19 "go ahead"
CB Prankster on 19 "Hey good buddy, check out channel 17!"
CD Victim on 19 "OK.. *click click*"
CD Victim on 17 "Hi"
CB Prankster Accomplice on 17 "Ha ha! I'm pulling my ass open!"
CD Victim on 17 "Oh dammit, fell for that again.."



I have this thing for The Man..

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, you're wrong, he never said that, you stupid, fat, Slashbot fuck.

-Kirk Troll.

"Open Source is not communism"

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a good one!

Re:Video hardware...

[cloudship_tacitus]

I have concerns I'll be able to tackle behemoths like HL2 or Doom2

yeah, that doom2 is a real behemoth when it comes to graphics.

(sorry, i couldn't resist)

Re:Storage Space

[Mysticalfruit]

Umm, can I surmize that your 10mb harddrive was quickly filled with ascii fisting porn, based on the link you left in your sig?

Re:Al Gore

[jeffy124]

you're right! He even got his name into it! The whole thing is, after all, based on Al-Gore-ithms. [sound of a million /.'ers groaning]

The PC is a modem!

[Zerbey]

I get informe by simpering users at least half a dozen times a day that the "modem thing" isn't working. They're referring to the large box under the desk that happens to be the PC.

None of our PC's have modems in them. I wish I had a dollar for every time I told a user that the big box thing isn't a modem, it's a PC.

Re:My favorite

[Insightfill]

Microsoft Windows Professional 2000

Re:my favorites

[sharkey]

The mainframe is dead

Was it running *BSD?

DRM, Copy Protection ...

[Stavr0]

"With Macrovision we will eliminate bootleg VHS copies once and for all!"

"With Laserlok we will eliminate software piracy once and for all!"

"With Cactus Datashield we will eliminate Audio CD ripping once and for all!"

for each $drm_product
for each $technology
"With {$drm_product} we will eliminate {$technology} piracy once and for all!"
end
end

Re:my personal favorite

[ptomblin]

And the project manager for Bob was punished in the worst way possible - they made her marry Bill Gates.

Most widely held misconception

[Anonymous Coward]

What are your favorite beliefs-turned-on-their-heads in the history of computing?

"Slashdots readers (and story submitters) are among the most intelligent people on the Internet."

The Use of Double Negatives

[buckhead_buddy]

Of course the adoption of a dying OS (BSD) by a dying computer company (Apple) was a well calculated plan to use double negatives to become a living force in the computer market once again ... or would that simply make them undead?

Any zombie hunters or grammar police out there?

Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty

[Wylfing]

I remarked to my father that Noone could ever get a job where all they did was push buttons all day. Now, except for the one knob on the 'scope under my desk, all my interfaces to the outside world ARE buttons.

Pardon me?

Daikatana

[Anonymous Coward]

John Romero is going to make you his bitch...

That was a good one.

Re:640K--not true

[Holi]

Actually you have that backwards, I think EVERYONE can factor a prime number no matter how large.

Re:640K--not true

[TimboJones]

I can factor any prime number (so can you!), thus:

sub factors($prime){
return ($prime, 1);
}

Of course, we all know he mean 'factor large numbers to primes'.

What is this "Dot-Com bubble" of which you speak?

[waldoj]

Does anyone remember the whole Dot-Com Bubble?

I like how you present that as new information. As if we might all be going "yeeaaahhhh...I totally forgot about that!"

-Waldo Jaquith

Re:the list

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget:

- Linux is useable on the desktop.

Actual Comp Sci Exam Question:

[CHaN_316]

Al Gore invented the algorithm, true or false.

You'd be suprised how many people circled true....

Re:download

[TimboJones]

It also tends to make the system halt. An emergency uninstall generally occurs if you install too quickly or use an inferior delivery mechanism. In my experience, system instability and eventual halt are more generally associated with quantity than speed.

Re:My favorite

[Anonymous Coward]

I once saw a CD that had the words on the title, Microsoft Works with Money.

Amiga / Apple

[MouseR]

As much as people say (wish?) that Apple is dying, there are as many saying the Amiga's coming back!

Uh... yeah... I'll stick with my Macs...

Computer geeks don't get laid

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Incorrect assumption. And I've got the pictures to prove it...

Re:download

[Anonymous Coward]

After some 10-15 upgrades it might get even uglier

Yes, but...

[MikeCapone]

ahh the slashdot troll...

Yes, but admit that you would miss it if it was gone.

Obligatory Futurama Quote

[CHaN_316]

"Hi, I'm Al Gore, the inventor of the environment and first emperor of the moon." - Al Gore (futurama)

Re:download

[binaryfeed]

I once sat next to a really nice older woman on a plane who told me that her grandson had downloaded the internet the night before.

Re:Then who did say it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this is the US and all. Guilty until you pay enough to become innocent. Or something like that =)

Re:DRM, Copy Protection ...

[IthnkImParanoid]

Dude, you just replaced Jack Valenti with a very small shell script.

Awesome.

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[Anonymous Coward]

woosh

Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty

[Rorschach1]

Hell, when I was in the 9th grade we managed to fill up a 40 meg drive with porn GIF's downloaded at 2400 baud using bogus BBS accounts.

Hmm, that ought to be a law of some sort... like 'the availability of pornography will increase at a rate sufficient to match any advances in data storage and transfer technology.' Yeah, I like that. Scott's law on digital smut. Bound to hold true longer than Moore's Law.

Telecom New Zealand

[Dodger-NZL]

"9600bps is the maximum speed able to be sent over copper phone lines."

Computer games...

[Stile 65]

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching on magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc. 1989

Re:My Personal Favorite...

[jcenters]

With Mac OS X, I guess Apple and BSD can die together!

Re:the list

[Billly Gates]

"No one will want to look at a man stretching his bottom wide open. "

Really? Got a link for that?

That E-Voting

[JohnnyGTO]

is fair and accurate.

Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty

[Billly Gates]

"Now, except for the one knob on the 'scope under my desk, all my interfaces to the outside world ARE buttons."

Well with a MCSE you can get a job clicking icons.

G5 is the fastest processor

[Anonymous Coward]

G5 is the fastest desktop processor in the world--Apple

That's funny stuff

Re:Obligatory Simpsonism

[IntelliTubbie]

Apu: Could it be used for dating?

Frink: Well, theoretically, yes, BUT the computer matches would be SO PERFECT as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest.

Glaven!
IT

logical conclusion:

[fok]

eat shit: bilions of flies cant be wrong

Re:My favorite lie

[the_mad_poster]

And I'd be much happier giving my mother (despite three college degrees and quite a high IQ, Macs are too complex for her) a Linux box than a Windows box or Mac.

Reminds me of a Dilbert strip.

PHB: Make it simple enough so even my mother could us it.

Alice: It's already simple enough that a squirrel could use it. How much dumber is your mother?

Linux Contains Copyrighted Unix Code

[jamonterrell]

Subject says it all.

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[emilng]

sticking children in front of computers somehow magically benefits them

Magically benefits the children or the computers?

An article by Jon Katz as proof?

[lee7guy]

How easily do you believe we are fooled?

"Bill Gates didn't say that, Achmed noted while surfing the web on his Commodore 64, in the Afghan mountains."

Reliable sources, yours are not. Mhmm.

Re:100MHz was the absolute limit

[Anonymous Coward]

100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU

Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.

For shame! Put that two digit display into hex. Voila 255 MHz.

Paperless Office

[SharkJumper]

I remember that computing was supposed to make our lives paperless. I never had so many stacks of paper sitting around before I got a computer.

SharkJumper

Re:1+2*3 = 9

[pommiekiwifruit]

Dang APL! Trust it to be different!

For you computational physicists:

[Bingo Foo]

And next year, we're going to do 3-D calculations. [computer.org]

Innovative

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft/Dell are leaders in innovation...

Re:640K--not true

[srobring]

I don't know if he said it or not.

What I do know is that if I was a leader in the computer industry back then, and there was a memory limit that I could not break through (yet), I would try to make it seem as if that limit wasn't an issue.

If 640K were enough for anybody, then who cares if there is a limit.

Multitasking

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Windows 1.0 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multitasker!"

Windows 3.0 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 3.1 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 3.11 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive 32bit multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 95 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 95OSR2 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 98 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows 98SE - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

Windows ME - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"

NT 3.5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP1 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP3 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP6 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP6A - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

NT 4 SP6ASRP - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

2K - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

XP - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

AS2k2 - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"

Longhorn - "Yes! This new version is Trustworthy(tm)!"

Air is good

[Brian Kendig]

I remember some news stories from '95 or so, back when the Web was really taking off. Bill Gates made an announcement that Microsoft would never have an Internet division, because "the Internet is like air, it permeates through all our divisions and products," or something like that.

Then, some months or a year later, Microsoft formed an Internet division. "Air is good," Gates announced, "we like air."

I don't recall the exact quote, and I can no longer find the articles, so if anyone else has a better recollection of this, please speak up!

P != NP

[lkaos]

Sorry, kept trying to post the proof of P = NP here but /. lameness filters won't let me.

Oh well, I'll leave the proof as an exercise for the reader... ;-)

Re:My Personal Favorite...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they both won't run on a 100MHz processor, and can't fit on a 1GB hard drive, so they must've died years ago!

The most incorrect one?

[Pig Hogger]

Just five more minutes.

Windows NT will be "a better Unix than Unix"

[dbk25]

Windows NT will be "a better Unix than Unix"
- Bill Gates

Did anyone ever actually use the POSIX API under Windows NT?

Steve Jobs, Then and Now

[Colonel Cholling]

Steve Jobs, 1984: "A floppy's good enough. Nobody really needs a hard drive."
Steve Jobs, 1998: "A hard drive's good enough. Nobody really needs a floppy drive."
(paraphrased)

Re:The REAL legacy of Microsoft Bob:

[golgotha007]

And so Melinda is still 'bobbing' for Bill...

not anymore. didn't you hear? they got married..

Re:Thankfully, your link debunks it too.

[salesgeek]

Would most of the planet know about it today without his help? Doubtful.

LOL. He deserves 1/(Senators+USReps+Lobyists+Bureaucrats) of credit. By my "fuzzy math" that would be 1/(100+457+3,210+several million) or approximately .000000001% of credit for the internet. Al does deserve 100% of the credit for making "I invented the ___________," "risky _____ shcheme" and "I demand a recount" jokes popular, and for a brief time funny.

Gore has went on the join the irrelevent think tank of could-have-been winners with Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale. To bad - the current crop of democratic presidential candidates makes Al Gore look very, very good.

Re:Bill Gates once said...

[AaronD12]

What I think is funny isn't the 1024K real-mode limitation, but that today's BIOSes still have the function call to turn on and off the cassette drive motor.

Re:Picking up chicks

[Malfourmed]

And of course, don't mention micro and soft.

Re:Isn't it interesting...

[amRadioHed]

Thank god they figured out if they seal the windows shut, we can safely travel at speeds approaching 30 mph.

A verbal goatse troll modded up to +5!

[hughk]

I suppose it could be worse, imagine goatse in braille!

Re:the list

[Zog The Undeniable]

No one will want to look at a man stretching his bottom wide open

Does anyone ever go there *on purpose*? Still, you have to admit the dude's had his 15 minutes of fame, although he probably doesn't get recognised much in the street.

Re:The REAL legacy of Microsoft Bob:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuckin' A