Aceshardware

I saw a personal computer hooked up to a machine for mixing a certain shade of paint at the hardware store yesterday. It bothered me I must say. Why do we require actual computers to hook up to something like a paint mixing machine? Talk of a bloathed, inappropriate solution - I thought that windows running the matrix was bad - but windows mixing paint is almost worse.

The personal computer seems like such an unsuitable, cumbersome and nasty kind of solution. Okay, so it can run windows etc. But surely we should be entering a stage in evolution now, where something more compact and friendlier could be used. The power saving profile of a typical PC was never optimised for this application. Where the PC is used once a week to mix up a few tins of paint for grandmother or grandad, to paint their kitchen with.

Now Linux mixing paint, running on a really basic 'computer'. Something like a wrist watch with a few bells and whistles. I can buy into that. Why does our definition of a computer always have to be an actual computer? What has happened to imagination?

gareth

Another dumb question. Why do bookstores seem to have a DOS kind of program to order books?

I can think of at least two reasons:

1. Using a computer rather than a dedicated device may make it look more "high tech" and impressive, so there are marketing benefits.

2. Writing a bit of software and using off-the-shelf hardware may be cheaper and easier than putting together a dedicated device for a relatively small market.

Think about what happened to dedicated word-processing machines et al.