Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Every generation has a default question that hearkens backwards. These can be quite irritating, but return the evolutionary thinker to earth. And that is needed.

Way back in the 1990s, the world was crawling out of one generation of computing into another. No matter what great new thing there was, there was one question asked, “Is it DOS compatible?”

(For those too young to have been there, DOS is Disk Operating System. It is what turned Bill Gates into Bill Gate$ and turned Microsoft into Micro$soft. People wanted to be back in the 1980s when it was the 1990s.)

Nowadays, the question is, “Does it have a USB port?” This means, “Can I connect my thumb drive to it? Can I plug my smartphone in it to recharge? Can I do what I have been doing the last few years?”

Those backwards-looking questions are quite irritating for the forward-leaning thinkers of the world. Those questions, however, are necessary. Those questions are this week’s version of, “Hey, earth calling. Your idea has to work here—where we are now. Will it?”

Aargh. Yes, the idea has to work with those folks who accomplish work. Well, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the idea can make life a little easier for a few folks I select. I can make a solution that works for my mother and no one else or for my grandson and no one else. Those things are nice and valuable to a few.

And those things mean nothing to 98.6% of everyone. Does it have a USB port? If it doesn’t, 98.6% of folks don’t care about it.