Next General Meeting: By Bruce Preston There was a time when you had no choice..If you wanted to make use of a computer; you had to go to the computer. After all, it filled a room and required lots of electricity and cooling capacity, not to mention support staff. In the ‘50s, CSC introduced remote processing – with a dedicated communications line, tab card reader and line printer. To do this, you had to go to a remote terminal but, at least, it might have been in your building. By the late ‘60s remote computing became mobile computing of a sort. You could lug around a portable terminal (typically 15 pounds), place a call over the dial-up network and interact with a timesharing computer. Thirty characters of text a second was a typical speed and, of course, there were no graphics or mouse, etc. Everything was done via keyboard entry and printed on thermal paper. Around 1980 or so, introduction of the personal computer brought mobile computing a bit closer. I had an Osborne 1, a machine with a small display, two disk drives, and a keyboard. When the case was closed it looked like and weighed about the same as my wife’s sewing machine (17 pounds!). But, I could compute wherever I happened to be as long as I had an AC outlet and my data with me on floppy diskettes. There was no Internet then so, essentially, it was my data or nothing. The addition of terminal emulation software, a modem and availability of a phone line gave me access to a timesharing computer and its data but, in that case, the micro computer was essentially just a glorified terminal. Advances in hardware and communications led to today’s Internet. More data is available from a considerably greater number of sources and, with broadband capabilities, it flows much more quickly. Notebook and netbook computers are considerably smaller and lighter than the old portables, but they really aren’t convenient. You have to plan ahead and remember to take one along if you think there is a chance that you might need it. In most cases, you also need at least WiFi access to the Internet. This has all changed with the introduction of truly mobile devices such as tablets (iPad etc.) and smart phones. While they use Wi-Fi if available (at no or greatly reduced cost) they may also the cellular network –(if you have a data plan). Your applications can now run in as small and convenient a device as your phone. At the DACS November 6th General Meeting, Joe Mazzeo and Dr. James Marcus will lead us through the evolution and trends in mobile applications. They will start with the “standard web site application” where the client (you) essentially makes use of a browser that acts as a terminal. Ultimately, they will work their way through applications designed specifically for mobile devices and go on to native mobile applications, i.e. applications written that make use of capabilities within the device. They will address such things as hosting platform, availability, target user market, access to device capabilities (such as being GPS aware) and, for those of us who have interest in development, the degree of difficulty in implementation for each type of mobile architecture.
--- DACS meetings are usually held at the Danbury Hospital auditorium. (Click here for directions and parking information.) Activities begin at 6:30 p.m. with registration and casual networking. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. with a question and answer period (Ask DACS), followed by announcements and a short break. The featured evening presentation begins at 8:00. The meeting is scheduled to adjourn at 9:30 p.m. DACS General Meetings are free and open to the public. Members and prior attendees are encouraged to extend invitations to anyone interested in this topic. Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS) is a registered nonprofit and has been serving the region since 1990.
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