We can now consider new kinds of computers – Internet computers, not just 370 mainframes, VAX minicomputers and Wintel PCs … Consider all kinds of Internet terminals: Internet televisions (intervisions), Internet telephones (interphones), Internet kiosks (interosks), Internet game players (interplayers), Internet teller machines (ITMs) and perhaps even interwave ovens. Eventually, we’re going to be needing home Ethernets, servers and routers to connect our various Internet computers.
Predictor: Metcalfe, Robert
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for InfoWorld, Internet pioneer and Ethernet creator Bob Metcalfe writes: ”Stewart Alsop is siding with Bill Gates against Larry Ellison, Scott McNealy, Lou Gerstner and me in the argument over non-Wintel Internet computers … Alsop and Gates need to break their PC mindset, enter the Internet mindset and consider what entirely new kinds of computers the World Wide Web might enable … What does it mean to adopt the Internet mindset? Well, for one thing, it means that we can now consider new kinds of computers – Internet computers, not just 370 mainframes, VAX minicomputers and Wintel PCs … Consider all kinds of Internet terminals: Internet televisions (intervisions), Internet telephones (interphones), Internet kiosks (interosks), Internet game players (interplayers), Internet teller machines (ITMs) and perhaps even interwave ovens. Eventually, we’re going to be needing home Ethernets, servers and routers to connect our various Internet computers.”
Biography:Robert Metcalfe developed Ethernet technology at Xerox PARC in 1973 and later developed the networking company 3Comm. He is known for making the exaggerated 1995 prediction that due to an expected overload as people tried to connect, the Internet would “go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” He later jokingly ate his words, pureeing a paper copy of the article including this comment and swallowing it before a group of onlookers. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: December 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Internet Appliances
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: Hit the Iway – And Don’t Bring a Disk, PC Mind-set, or Microwave Oven
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/metcalfe/bm121195.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Pinkerton, Bradley Steven