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[ALLY] Re: Ok, so we can't yet have REBOL on a Palm; notenough memory...

From: chaz::innocent::com at: 28-Oct-2000 2:03

Thank you for your well-considered response. At 11:32 AM 10/27/00 +0000, you wrote:
>Hi Chaz, > >I don't think that consoles are good at doing same things as computers. >They are now designed so that you can just turn it on, put the CD or >cartridge in and play. The internet-ready consoles have Internet >connection and TCP/IP stack for playing online games, but no >applications like web browsers or email programs.
Playstation 2 original specification including internet connection, this could still become a reality. And since Microsoft has tied its destiny to the Internet, one could expect XBox to have internet connectivity Not a problem, with REBOL on the console, one could access the World Wide REB, send email (pop://), read newsgroups (nntp://), get the accurate time (daytime://), etc
>Perhaps the Amiga consoles and Dreamcast are an exception that they >are actually normal computers packed as a console. But, AFAIK, >Playstation, Nintendo 64, Playstation 2 and X-Box are designed only >for games and it would be difficult to write normal applications for >them.
Currently, consoles are used exclusively for games. But looked at from another perspective, they are low-cost platforms designed with powerful multimedia capabilities. The most glaring difference are the input devices - gamepads rather than keyboards or mice. One should definitely do not expect that an application created for the console would be like a word processor or a spreadsheet. Word processors are an evolution of the typewriter. Spreadsheets are an evolution of the columnar pad. One would hope that REBOL on a console would allow people to invent the future, to empower them to create applications that will be obvious once they are created, but at them moment we cannot imagine. I know there are visions of home computer, set-top box and game
>console merged together, but I think current console companies have no >interest in it.
If we travelled back in time 30 years and tried to describe to some naive person the computers we use right now, they might think we were describing some kind of merging of a "television" and a "typewriter" and a calculator and wonder what possible appeal such a chimera could possibly have. But that's beside the point. I only wish to entertain the possibility of REBOL on the currently planned next generation of consoles.
>As for expanding a console to a "full" computer, you could expand >Amiga CD32 with additional modules, you got hard disk, mouse, >keyboard, parallel and serial ports and video output to a monitor >instead of TV. IIRC people did this when there was a shortage of >Amiga 1200s.
The Amiga is a wonderful platform. When Windows 95 came out, some of the benefits proclaimed were "true multitasking", "built-in multimedia support", "long filenames", etc. You know, stuff that Amiga users have had for years.
>Is there a huge market for REBOL in consoles? I can imagine >REBOL/View with sound and full motion video capabilities as a great >development tool for console games and multimedia encyclopedias and >such. And game developers could use REBOL dialects to script their >games, instead of inventing UnrealScript or using C and a virtual >machine like Quake 3. But these uses are not specific to consoles, >they would be also useful for computers.
Perhaps we are not so far, I think. The historian Marshall McLuhan said The medium is the message . As long as REBOL is used on computers, REBOL will be used to do the sorts of things that people have come to expect from computers. Mostly flat static screens. We use it the way we use other computer things. 1) We write or modify a script in an editor then 2) We run it. Repeat. If REBOL is used on a radically different kind of platform, then we will be in a new frontier. The language itself is dynamic - its all fluid data. REBOL is very well suited to take on the character of the console. Expect dynamic interfaces that immerse you into their operation. Perhaps in the future we will program in REBOL using a heads-up display, the code flying past us, errors emitting a distinct sounds, and using our trained reflexes to modify functions as they pass in front of our targeting cross-hairs... chaz