Ahead of the Curve:
Why Johnny Can't Geek
by Mike Peck
(Page 2)
by Mike Peck
(Page 2)
On-line devotees and computer enthusiasts are unique in that they don't mind having to upgrade to be able to run the latest and greatest. However, they are not the masses. And everywhere you look, everyone is talking about CD-ROMs and on-line services becoming mass products. The term "plug and play" is nearly as hackneyed and painful to hear as "killer app" and "information superhighway," but it's just as far from coming to fruition. The average consumer is afraid of new technology. He or she knows it's becoming more important -- even hip -- to know about it, but has no idea where to start. And the high-tech industries, though struggling with the issue, have yet to find a real solution.
A recent Wall Street Journal story discussed reportedly widespread problems with the CD-ROM version of Disney's The Lion King, which is a perfect example of a high-tech toy marketed to some lower-tech consumers. According to the story, many users went through hell trying to install the game and get it running. A featured user -- a software professional -- sat struggling with the program on Christmas day while his kid sat bawling because she couldn't play the game.
Disney, the story continued, had hired an inadequate number of staff members to man the help lines, so when the avalanche of distress calls came down, they were quickly overwhelmed. The company, which prides itself on pleasing the customer and is indeed foremost in that regard, later brought on more people to work the phones. However, the damage was already done; too many kids had been left wailing while their desperate parents fought to get the cuddly critters onto the monitor.
This isn't how it's supposed to work, but technical problems too often do pop up. And it illustrates how quickly a good program can crash and burn on many PCs when it hits the mainstream. I saw a working demo of The Lion King; it was very well done and, I thought, a good example of how the medium can shine when a title is well designed. However, too many consumers who buy a title like that can end up with no better use for their discs than to repurpose them as drink coasters.
According to research by New York, NY-based Alexander & Associates, 34.1 percent of U.S. households with CD-ROM drives have PCs running a 486DX2 or DX4 processor, while 13.7 percent have Pentium-based machines. Those numbers, obviously, are expected to rise since an increasing percentage of new desktop machines sold into the market are multimedia set-ups.
Compaq, in particular, has put a considerable amount of effort into marketing its all-in-one machines as a plug-and-play buy. Others are following suit. However, the danger there is that consumers think that once they've bought these A-to-Z machines and set them up, they're set for life.
Wrong.
I had my machine built for me in June. At that time, the Pentiums were already out, but mine was still a unit with respectable muscle: 486DX2, 540-megabyte hard drive, two megabytes of video RAM, eight megabytes of RAM and a 14.4 baud modem. I'm still happy with it, but I understand full well that my eight megs of RAM, slightly ahead of the game when I bought the thing, are standard now and will be behind the times very shortly. I know enough and knew enough when I bought it to expect that. If I want to browse the Web faster, I'll by a 28.8. If I want to run heftier software, I may have to upgrade the hard drive and certainly will have to spring for more RAM.
