[MUD-Dev] Cyberspace in the 21at century-- (long)

[Frank Crowell]

Is anyone following Fitch's articles "Cyberspace in the 21st Century"?
(http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010226/fitch_01.htm).  Part 5
deals with P2P, which most people know it as peer-to-peer.  But I can
tell you that a P2P meme is going around.  It might have been caused
by Napster or it could have been caused by some people looking at the
nutty way the computer world is going.  If you have ever seen an
Activate or Exodus site you know what I mean.  I have worked in two
companies that have been in love with the ASP model.

I see "P2P" to mean people-to-people and it is the way I translated it
when the meme hit me several months ago.  In fact I realized how far I
had drifted from my original computer evolutionary path.  Many years
ago before most of you were born, I was approached by a book publisher
to make something that was portable and that salesmen could use in the
field.  The only computer that even remotely could have done that was
an HP scientific calculator.  The next computer up in size would have
crushed his car.  So much for that project then.

Fast forward.  From High Priest mainframes to 4-bit TI. Went to
Silicon Valley.  Intel and National Semi. 18-bit, 32-bit
microprocessors.  Olvietti "Office of the Future".  At the beginning
of the new PC.  Microsoft was a micro-sized company.

And before long computers got smaller and faster.  And the luggables
became laptop. Then one day I was playing with my HP 28C when I
realized that was what computers must be.  That size with a small
keyboard and a small screen. And absolutely free of location.  I
didn't like the small keyboard, but I didn't have a good alternative.
At that moment the wireless PDA meme bit me.  Well it would be a while
longer before such a product would be made but as luck would have it I
got a chance later to work with one of the first HP PDAs, and later a
wireless version of Handspring's Visor.

But...  Somehow I had missed that an evil thing had happened to the
computer world.  A thing called ASP -- which allowed one service to
control hundreds and thousands of computers.  The old centralized
computer center had come back in a different form.

I guess that's why I like the concept of P2P.  I have always been
skeptical of the implementation, but not the concept. As Fitch points
out, P2P puts the computer back in people's hands, "Power seems to be
returning to the people".

If you look at the current commerical trend, virtual worlds in the
form of games have approached the ASP model, but it is really
anti-21st century.  Pocket computers, wireless, streaming is all about
a federation of co-operating computers.  Indrema
(httpL//www.indrema.com) is the right form for a mud server-client,
client-server (we need a word that implies both).

The question really boils down to what would it take to make the first
mudster?  Going directly to a PDA would be too extreme at this point
although I believe that one of my vworld-biz list members did have a
project for wearable computers.  But you could have a reduced graphics
or text only version running off a PDA and 2D/3D graphics version
running off of a small machine such as like Indrema.

Sidebar: had a chance to attend a midi monster concert once.  It would
really be fun to do a multiscreen vworlds version in a place like Las
Vegas.

What do you think?  Has the P2P meme bitten you yet?

frank





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