Is the magic really gone?

[Mando]

But, but the poRn is better than evar .... :p

awww dontcha miss the 8-bit pixelated strip poker images :p

I'm an optimist.

I'm sure some new gadgets that will be released in the next 10 years will blow everyone's minds off.

The sound and video quality are destined to become better too.

As for the computers, the power will keep on increasing, while the size of the chips will continue to shrink - that, coupled with new materials being invented, will open new possibilities: wearable computers, augmented reality, etc.

agree to a point but the higher the resolution and display quality doesn't make up for the dearth that is content, film studios are stuck in a cash cow loop. a turds a turd in HD/SuperHD or in 3D :)

[Rippleman]

or apple suing everybody.... -_-

only apple lawsuits get the limelight, if you do fine research, you will see google, MS and all the other ones sue more.

[Ice_Blue]

Remember typing assembler code from PC Magazine into Debug.com?

Double checking painstakingly before hitting CTRL-Z.

Setting DIP switches on your expansion card, then booting and praying there wouldn't be an IRQ conflict?

The sense of reward and gratitude you felt after succeeding?

[Anibal P]

I never considered computers "magical"!? I was programming simple BASIC logic puzzles when I was 7 and always saw them as a tool. The cyberpunk nonsense you remember was absolute guff that Holywood pushed.

Ah the good old days, for me it was rewriting PCjr Games for a PC AT clone we had, back in the days when computer mags had programs you could type in in the middle, and wondering why there had to be different syntax's in BASIC for the PC AT and PCjr.

[+Gary7 Subscriber²]

I grew up with Dos then Win 3.0 and the magic is still there but the Net is slowing ruining it.

[nekkidtruth]

That's a very ignorant thing to say. That wouldn't change anything nor bring back that spark we use to feel.

Not really ignorant at all. Generally when people aren't "feeling" something anymore, they no longer do it. It's a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

[Detection]

I've lost some of the magic feeling, I think Win 7 was the last OS I actually got even slightly excited about when builds leaked, Vista I was jumping up and down each new leak, I didn't really have much interest in 8 even though my younger self would have not been able to sleep with such a radical change as the new UI

I used to get excited during Vista leaks even if the only change was a new sound or icon :laugh:

I think it is age, I feel like I am fighting a losing battle against boringness, I get the odd moment here and there where I`ll head over to BA and grab an old Beta of some OS and play with it in VMWare but it lasts only up until the first crash or error and I return to just wanting a working machine again

[EmbraceNext]

or apple suing everybody.... -_-

Everyone sues everyone. Actually patent trolls are suing people way more than the large companies.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I think the magic is still there, but convenience and complacency has made a lot of people less likely to discover new things or build something.

I mean I've recently bought a Raspberry Pi, and I've already created a few interesting web-based applications for it, the whole thing is really interesting to me. There's also Arduinos and other IC's that you can mess about with. These types of things are far more accessible than they used to be.

I've really been enjoying getting back to the bare command line on an OS, you do feel like you're more in control.

[Luc2k]

Magic died with Steve Jobs. :shifty:

[LaP]

The magic is not gone. You just got old.

[aludanyi]

The magic started dying when they started dumbing everything so that grandma could use it.

Install LFS (Linux From Scratch) or at least Arch Linux - preferably without a GUI ;) - fire up Perl, Emacs and maybe a litte GCC (or LLVM/Clang if you really want to feel the magic) and trust me, the magic will be there and your grandma wouldn't be able to watch while you use it let alone to use it herself :)

[Raa]

Yeah I tend to agree sadly...

[MS Bob 11]

Install LFS (Linux From Scratch) or at least Arch Linux - preferably without a GUI ;) - fire up Perl, Emacs and maybe a litte GCC (or LLVM/Clang if you really want to feel the magic) and trust me, the magic will be there and your grandma wouldn't be able to watch while you use it let alone to use it herself :)

And your point is? Without GUI there is no magic. We need something that advances the GUI, doesn't take a huge step back just for Grandma.

[spenser.d]

You're following the wrong things now, that's why - go check out "The Human Face of Big Data" if you want some pretty awesome perspective about where we are right now and where we can go.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

And your point is? Without GUI there is no magic. We need something that advances the GUI, doesn't take a huge step back just for Grandma.

In fairness to aludanyi, you said that the magic was lost when they started dumbing it down so that more people could use a computer. The GUI was probably the biggest step towards doing that. Before you just had the command line which wasn't very intuitive for your average joe.

So really, when you say that the magic was gone when they started dumbing it down for Grandma, what you mean is that the magic was lost when they started locking everything down so that your average person couldn't easily break their machine.

[SkyDX]

I've lost some of the magic feeling, I think Win 7 was the last OS I actually got even slightly excited about when builds leaked, Vista I was jumping up and down each new leak, I didn't really have much interest in 8 even though my younger self would have not been able to sleep with such a radical change as the new UI

I used to get excited during Vista leaks even if the only change was a new sound or icon :laugh:

I think it is age, I feel like I am fighting a losing battle against boringness, I get the odd moment here and there where I`ll head over to BA and grab an old Beta of some OS and play with it in VMWare but it lasts only up until the first crash or error and I return to just wanting a working machine again

Yeah I agree so much with this! :D What I miss the most from these days is entire communities analyzing the workings of Vista and making mods, new skins and themes, unlocking Aero and whatnot while nowadays I feel like no community is really interested in Windows 8 and if anything there are maybe five people making mods for it :( Oh well maybe it will happen with Win9 again who knows^^

[neufuse Veteran]

there just isn't any good hype anymore... and not I'm not talking about Apples hype machine...... I'm talking about tech that people think wow that is awesome and never done before... when the first Mac came out it was a wow... when the first smart phone (it was an IBM device in 1992 called the Simon, and no it was not the Apple newton which came out in 1993) came out way way back it was a wow... first tablet in the late 90's...

[Dot Matrix]

The magic is just beginning. I can't wait to see where mobile technology goes in the next few years. I'm planning to move to a tablet over this year.

The magic started dying when they started dumbing everything so that grandma could use it.

Boo hoo.

[Torolol]

for me, the magic was to creates a working program in assembly languages,

it was common during Dos era,

dwindling in x86 windows era,

almost disapears in current 64-bit OS.

"what ###### is that", its the common response when I tried to preach about assembly to 64-bit masses.

[Active.]

when the first Mac came out it was a wow

And remember the Mac's tagline? "The Computer for the rest of us" ? It wasn't the techies among us who the Mac was trying to wow...the iPad and such devices today are only a logical extension of that. And certainly today, techies are not who the market caters to anymore. Which doesn't mean that there aren't exciting areas and diy projects to work on, play and tinker with for hobbyists, but it simply isn't the mainstream anymore, which imo is actually a very good thing. And in the end, someone still has to program all those wonderful new easy to use devices.

[Dot Matrix]

I laugh at today's youth who think they "know" computing simply because they know how to run a few apps or navigate their way around a dumbed down OS. Yet, ask them a networking question or ask them to code something and they are at a complete loss.

I abhor coding. I won't go near it with an infinite foot pole. You can keep it.

[neufuse Veteran]

for me, the magic was to creates a working program in assembly languages,

it was common during Dos era,

dwindling in x86 windows era,

almost disapears in current 64-bit OS.

"what ###### is that", its the common response when I tried to preach about assembly to 64-bit masses.

Ah assembly.... I remember in comp sci when people took assembly they thought it was "an out dated dead language"..... yeah the closest thing to machine code is dead.... wish people would realize what complining and linking is actually doing... and that assembly can get you stuff done much faster then some of the predesigned libraries and functions... hence why we have __asm in C++ and similar things in some other languages...

And remember the Mac's tagline? "The Computer for the rest of us" ? It wasn't the techies among us who the Mac was trying to wow...the iPad and such devices today are only a logical extension of that. And certainly today, techies are not who the market caters to anymore. Which doesn't mean that there aren't exciting areas and diy projects to work on, play and tinker with for hobbyists, but it simply isn't the mainstream anymore, which imo is actually a very good thing. And in the end, someone still has to program all those wonderful new easy to use devices.

yeah but it was something new and different... it had a GUI based OS which was not common, hence the wow factor..... wow != dumbing down, it means something new that hasn't been widely done before..... iPhone wasn't a "wow" because smart phones existed before it.... iPad wasn't a wow, because honestly it was just a bigger iPhone.... iPod wasn't a wow, because there was hundreds of MP3 players before it.....

iMac Mini was kinda a wow because it was so small and compressed.... Touch screens where kinda a wow factor because average users couldn't afford them or have a use for them until recently... Bluray should of been a wow but the internet ruined that.... because there was no high def high fidelity storage method... internet still can't match 1:1 blu-ray quality streaming.... TiVo was a wow because DVR was a new idea

[aludanyi]

I abhor coding. I won't go near it with an infinite foot pole. You can keep it.

LoL... you say that only because you can't have it, not in a million years. If you are capable to construct software, there is no such force in the Universe which is able to prevent you from doing it, it is the ultimate pleasure for the mind.If you aren't capable, then you hate it, or abhor it as you say, and you want to run away from it as fast as you can as far as possible. I guess, there can't be magic without wizards... :)

[Malisk]

there just isn't any good hype anymore... and not I'm not talking about Apples hype machine...... I'm talking about tech that people think wow that is awesome and never done before... when the first Mac came out it was a wow... when the first smart phone (it was an IBM device in 1992 called the Simon, and no it was not the Apple newton which came out in 1993) came out way way back it was a wow... first tablet in the late 90's...

The last time I felt that was during the

when he skydived and broadcast it live, then entered the stage after having just skydived. Along with the

. I can't wait for Google Glass to become a mainstream product! I can imagine people at beaches can, though. Haha!