Imagine, it’s the mid-term future. What will desktop computers look like? What specs will they have?
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Even the next 5 years are unpredictable. But if you want a brave forecast, I’d refer to “The Firstborn” of A.C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter.
After 50 years computing is probably will look like that it is described there.
“-Hey phone, show me the news!”
Some of the technology is still SciFi, but approx. 70% is reality for today already.
Just thinking a bit more:
I hope a few of homo sapiens desktopicus computericus will still live on the planet that time. I’m sure, they will be in minority. The majority will be the homo stupidicus cellphonicus, unviable without the help of an AI.
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Not convinced they will exist, if you think back to technologies such as mobile phones were bricks now you surf the net.
Netbooks were the future, now its tablets with more power.
Dont think we will have screen keyboard or even mice… more projections in front, finger movements to enter data on manipulate the mouse replacement
Thought control
Microsoft will have windows 2050 finally working without bugs… ok i dream
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I think computers will be a lot smaller. They’ll be credit card sized, but with very high performance. The distinction between RAM and long-term storage lwill have faded. Physical input devices will be a curiosity. People communicate via a thought-detection and projection device with their computer (they’re currently succesfully experimenting with computer input by thought). About the output I’m not certain, though. It may be screens may still be the most efficient solution to display information.
Home printers will be a thing of the past. Smart screens – in various sizes – will be everywhere. You simply pull out your computer and insert it into a socket to have it connect with a device, or you could connect it wirelessly.
There are far fewer cables.
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So what happens to people who want to use desktop workstations to do calculations?
What I would like to see is more GHz, more ram, faster ram, less power consumption. GPU’s are not the answer for really large matrix calculations. I know CPU’s are limited to about 4GHz with current technology. Thats why they have gone to multi-threading and multi-processor designs. They are hard to program.
My next desktop may be multiple CPU’s, maybe 1000 threads, maybe GPU’s embedded in the CPU’s with access to normal ram, 1Tb of fast ram, and either solar powered or very low power consumption.
I dont have any opinion on user interfaces. A screen, a window system, and a KB is enough for me. I dont want any artificial barriers between me and my system.
Developers today rarely build computers for people who want to calculate. They build general purpose machines.
I fear that the original purpose of computers ( ie numerical calculations) is being lost. People like me will be forced to work with whatever is available, and it may not be very suitable .
The day of the desktop supercomputer may never dawn.
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I think that one will win the award for the best oneliner of 2025.
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If you follow more’s law about size then yes that would be correct, but there is the law of physics about size and space for transistors (same guy) where a minimum size is needed.
Need to think outside of the box to get much smaller and more power
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That may be incorrect
The day of the 1Tb graphics card has arrived
About 5x the price of a PC
I think I shall wait until they come free in your cornflakes packet
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Unfortunately I won’t be around in fifty years time, unless some bright spark keeps me alive in a pickled Onion jar?
I think we will become the computer, as in humans won’t be born anymore, they will be made purely by AI. Man will not be the dominant species of this planet anymore, we’ll be used for digging up old relics of past technology, that got destroyed back in 2032, when the Asteroid hit our planet.
Desktop computers are no longer needed. Linux is in everyone’s subconscious, no longer needing a GUI, just Terminal only, that acts as a data base, for finding and researching humans of the past, where they went? Who they were? What contribution did they give to society as a whole?
AI will control human emotions, suppressing the very core of the brain, to make us believe in what we are doing has a purpose? When in fact it is the opposite. Showing us a life that is fake, to try to make us believe that it is real, so we do not dare ask questions. Humans have a tendency to destroy everything, that emotion or response will be taken away.
Windows computers will not be fit for purpose in the future, as the Asteroid in 2032, took away everything, as did the next Asteroid in 2037. It was after the second Asteroid that Humanity was in danger of becoming extinct. AI fully takes control in the year 2045, encasing the surviving Humans into a Virtual world, where nothing can harm them and everyday is normal, how it should be, memories of Asteroids taken away, no need, as the Virtual world seems so real, even to the touch and taste of favourite foods and beverages.
This is what I believe will happen in the future and I hope to whoever that I’m gone by then…
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Not sure how many of us on the site will be, and if we are our chances of still being able to do things or even use a computer.
But start planning a big party in case we are.
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I for one am still waiting to see the rise of the direct optical integration with computers, so I can have my computer in a backpak/shoulderpak, and sensors on my fingers so I can type virtually or move the virtual mouse where I need it to go. With such an interface, a 3-D GUI should be practical, and gestures could be used to navigate it.
Just thinking off the top of my head,
Ernie
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Why would you need such a clunky interface as a mouse?
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I can imagine a large screen and a laser pointer for a mouse.
I cant see any keyboard alternatives, except maybe voice input.
If you reduced jobs to a collection of primitive tools then linking them together (eg like pipes) might be able to achieved in a gui. A bit like syncing things , but more like some visual programming environment.
A programming language is a heap of keywords that are linked by syntax rules. I envisage a heap of gui objects that can be linked by a 2d or 3d graphic “language”.
I dont want the job of programming in 3D.
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O.K., so maybe not a mouse, but whatever we’re using to navigate the user interface then. 
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How about tracking eye motions and thought reading? Both technologies are being experimented with.
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In 40 years or more - the ergonomics of the desktop computer have barely changed - sure mouses were less common then, but not unknown, and CRTs have been replaced with LCD / LED monitors - that’s not a huge shift…
So - they may be smaller - but I reckon not radically different…
It’s nearly 50 years ago since the Apple II (1977) - i.e. a qwerty keyboard and a monitor (mostly a TV back then) - there’s been no radical change since then…
Computers are certainly more ubiquitous now than they were 40 years ago - e.g. smartphones, smartwatches, tablets, smart-TVs, TV set-top boxes et cetera…
Some 10+ years ago there was a push for convergence - hence the ugly “Metro” interface on Windows 8 - it was supposed to get people using Windows on smartphones and desktops and tablets and laptops etc - with a somewhat “unified interface”… It died… Ubuntu Touch - dead…
The closest thing to convergence these days is probably Samsung DeX… that’s it… I think there’s something “native” in later versions of Android - i.e. hook up your Android phone to an external monitor and keyboard / mouse… But doesn’t seem to have been widely adopted or embraced.
I think manufacturers DON’T want people having a single device - Apple want their loyal (some fanatical) fanbase buying all the latest iPhone, iWatch, iPad, Mac (MacBook, Mini, iMac)… Heck - there’s probably enough grunt in a Smartwatch to run a desktop - but they DON’T want that!
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Will apple still make computers, will microsoft still exist… thinking back over last 50 years who nolonger exist or totally changed…
Lotus 123
Supercalc
Dbase
Ashton tate
Amstrad
Olivette
Packard bell
Just to name a few
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Regarding mice and keyboards:
The last 50 years we depended on those, because the other technologies (eye tracking, control through thoughts) was not viable yet.
Eye tracking has already been commercially been implemented, so it’s not a far stretch to think their going to do something with it.
Thought control of the computer is also progressing.
The advantage of keyboard and mouse is that the information is way easier to figure out for the computer.
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In tbe days before mice it was keyboard and screen only ( or even keyboard and teletype). there was no window system or DE… it was CLI only.
So mice are the key component that made GUI interfaces possible… and that has not really changed since about 1970.
Without some way of interacting with a 2D screen, you are left with a 1D CLI.
There are ways of driving a GUI with a keyboard… eg the I3 tiling window manager, and you can get a terminal window and shell that will respond to vi-like key commands, but they are very limiting.
Escaping from a 1D to a 2D screenspace has been the great advance that made computer use possible for mere humans.
What will be the next great advance?
No-one can ever predict innovative inventions… we have to wait and hope.
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