Better Living Through Silicon

"Computers bore Happy Mutants. They do a half-assed job at sending signals to your eyes and ears, while the real world can send ultra-high resolution data to all of your senses. So why is everybody sitting around in front of these lousy boxes all day, staring at blocky pictures and typing out chunky-looking text?"

My initial response was "oh shit, Handbook, you have no idea." May 2020 is a very different place from any point in '95. Let's pretend that COVID-19 isn't the only change in the world.

The Process to end all Processes is back!

First, no love for Smell-O-Vision? Anyway, screen resolution has come a long way in 25 years. Check out PC TV, and watch the future, as of 1996:

If you want to geek out on the details, check out evolution of desktop Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), from 1995 to 2020, or reminisce at length over the history of computer display standards. In short, the blocky visuals of the 1990s have been replaced by optical resolution, pixels so small that the screen appears to recreate reality ... in 2D. But we live in 3D, so why aren't we watching 3D? Well, that has a lengthy history, too.

"OK, what about the inputs?" asks the mutant of the past. "Are we still banging away on keyboards?" Yes, and we're poking screens now! And computers are listening! All the time! Isn't that great? "Sure, sure, future person. But what are you doing with all that?" Well, lots of things. There's still a lot of staring at screens, but also talking to (and shouting at) people around the world! How great is that? And artificial life is still an active and evolving (harhar) field!

Onwards, into the retro-future of Better Living Through Silicon!