RE: [aclug-L] Smart Cars

["Wilner, Alden" <alden.wilner@xxxxxxxx>]

I guess I gotta flog this horse a little more.

I tend to feel that hardware standardization is not the major factor in the
growth of Linux.  I tend to place the credit with the World Wide Web. It has
enables legions of like-minded hackers around the world to get together to
create this thing.

There were hackers before Microsoft. There were hackers before IBM. They
just hacked on different "stuff."  Wozniak & Jobs hacked together something
called the "Apple."  Richard Stallman hacked together something called
"GNU," without which I don't think Linux would be possible.

Now, I do agree that cheap hardware is important. And PC hardware is
certainly cheap.  But I contend that the hardware required to make a smart
car is also fairly cheap, and is going to get lots cheaper real soon.
'Cause there are a lot of cars out there, and the big car companies are
already working on "advisor" systems that'll beep at you when you're about
to do something stupid.  That's the sensors. Actuators are available, too.
Just drop by any Engineering college. So all you gotta do is find a hardware
hacker to wire the the brains up to the sensors and actuators, and maybe not
expect your car to drive too outrageously fast at first, and you're on your
way!

I should also point out something I didn't stress enough in my earlier
email, and that's that smart cars are already here. They exist as
prototypes, and as University-sponsored projects, and they don't (some of
them) need special highways, either. It really is just liability concerns
that's keeping them from being available today.  That and the whole
"freedom" thing.  Well, personally, I don't think having to hold your hands
on a steering wheel for hours on end is particularly "free." I'd much rather
use the time to read a book, or watch a show, etc.Yah, sure there's times
when I like to take control. But there are other times when I don't. And a
smart car, like a cruise control, will be something you can take or leave. 

I better quit yammering abuout cars and start talking about Linux, huh?
Like, "How I finally got my US Robotics Internal Modem to talk to Linux." (I
enabled PnP in the BIOS).

Sincerely,
Alden Wilner (alden.wilner@xxxxxxxx)

Was it the earth of Earth that Anteus required under his feet for strength,
or would the soil of some other planet do? -- Kenneth Brower

On Friday, January 15, 1999 10:02 AM, Bob Deep [SMTP:bobd@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
wrote:
> John Goerzen wrote:
> > > The success of linux, is in some strang way related to the success of
> > > Microsoft.  Without MS's serious control of the computing hardware
> > > market, and the standardization of the Personal Computer hardware, the
> > 
> > Unfortunately, there isn't really any standardization of PC hardware.
There
> > is no standard for video cards (only for their output).  PCI itself has
> > several flavors.  We have IDE, EIDE, UDMA, SCSI, SCSI-UW, SCSI-U2W, etc.
> 
> Most video cards run a standard set of VGA formats and have very
> standard and similar modes of operation...  Disk communication
> techniques are very limited in scope (SCSI looks like SCSI-UW, IDE and
> EIDE are very close varients etc..)  What I'm saying is that, because
> MicroSoft controlls the Hardware (by the fact that their products don't
> run on a VAX or something), we have a known published hardware standard
> and a stable hardware platform that's cheep.

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