The Troubled Soul of a New Machine

by David M. Cole

Back when we (12 newspapers from around the country and the Associated Press) were experimenting with on-line newspapers on CompuServe in 1981, the folks at CompuServe and the AP suggested we obtain a Radio Shack Videotext Terminal.

This device consisted of a single plastic component---a keyboard with a phone jack on one side and a TV-set jack on the other. You entered a phone number, and the device dialed the phone. It also instructed the TV to display both the downloaded text and anything you typed. It used only upper-case letters and, with a monospaced font, moved only 24 characters across the screen. You could scroll back a page or two, but that was it---there was no disk drive, no internal storage.

I think it cost $300.

The old Radio Shack Videotext Terminal came to mind recently as I read about the "$500 Computer." This device is the vision of a couple of computing-industry bigwigs: Larry Ellison, the chairman of Oracle Corp. (a big-time provider of databases) and Scott McNealy, the chairman of Sun Microsystems Inc. (a big-time provider of UNIX workstations and file servers).

Ellison and McNealy propose that this machine---they're calling it the Netsurfer---would bring the masses to the Internet. It would connect to a phone line, use your TV set as the display monitor and would not include a disk drive.

Sound familiar?

The difference between the two devices, of course, is that the Netsurfer would have a much more powerful processor (they're talking RISC---reduced instruction set computer, the core of the new PowerPCs and Sun workstations), and the modem connection would probably be faster than the Videotext Terminal's 300 bits per second (probably more like 28,800 bits per second).

And while the Videotext Terminal pumped out humble ASCII text, the Netsurfer would display graphically enriched World Wide Web pages.

Devices like the Netsurfer---and if it's a hit, you can bet there'll be imitators---would be a boon to the already booming Web, as well as all newspapers that are spending lots of time and effort building up Web sites.

A $500 box that connects people to the Web would mean Web access for the masses. Anyone who could afford a television set and a phone could afford Web access (as opposed to the current situation, where only the relatively affluent---both in a monetary and technical sense---can surf).

The media hype over the Web would finally become reality for a lot of people. Those who might never have purchased a personal computer could be persuaded to gain Internet access if it only cost $500.

Features of the Web that are currently stuck on the ground---specifically on-line shopping and retail advertising---would probably begin to take off. And the Netsurfer devices are supposed to also include support for the Java environment, which allows for fancy-smancy Web animations and other "cool stuff."

Newspaper Web developers would have a field day using the features inherent in each of the Netsurfer-like devices---and maybe Web-based newspaper operations would finally become profitable.

But before we get too excited about Netsurfer, let's remember the popularity of our friend the Videotext Terminal---it swept the nation, and along with a chicken in every pot, there was a Videotext Terminal on every TV---not.

The Videotext Terminal's flop, and the Netsurfer's uncertain future, can be explained as follows:

Without any local storage, these devices must rely on the network to store data and programs. If you want to get a copy of an E-mail you wrote, you'll have to connect the device to the network. If you want to run an application program, you'll have to be on the Internet. If your connection to the Internet is dead, then so is your machine. I have one of the best Internet-access providers in Northern California and in the last week, the service has been down five times---once for four hours. Keeping everything in a remote location is uncomfortable and inconvenient.
A problem that didn't plague the Videotext Terminal but may affect the Netsurfer is the rationale. I suspect Ellison and McNealy aren't doing this for the good of society---instead, it seems they want to confront Microsoft Corp. and its dominance of the personal computer marketplace. Perhaps their strategy is to eliminate the PC and replace it with the Netsurfer.

Unfortunately, despite my desire---and the entire newspaper industry's need---for the Netsurfer to work, my prediction is that because of its inherent technical problems and its seemingly business- rather than vision-driven origins, the device will probably go the way of the Radio Shack Videotext Terminal:

Nowhere.

Cole is a San Francisco-based newspaper consultant and is editor of The Cole Papers, a monthly newsletter on technology, journalism and publishing. E-mail, cole@plink.geis.com; phone, (415) 673-2424; fax, (415) 673-2449.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily TechNews or NAA.