This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Scott Hanselman. Original Post: PDC. I'm ready for a revolution. Impress me. Blow me away. Feed Title: Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com Feed URL: http://radio-weblogs.com/0106747/rss.xml Feed Description: Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com is a .NET/WebServices/XML Weblog. I offer details of obscurities (internals of ASP.NET, WebServices, XML, etc) and best practices from real world scenarios. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Scott Hanselman Latest Posts From Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

I'm ready for a change.  I'm ready to be impressed.  If you know me, I'm all about Microsoft.  I dig them, their tech, especially their people.  While I've worked in Java on Solaris talking to Mainframes, I really cut my teeth on writing thunking code during the 16-bit/32-bit transition.  I know I'm not an "old timer."  I've never seen a punch card. (Although I've read Cryptonomicon. ;) )  I'm Generation X or Y, not Generation U or V.

I'm from a middle place.  I'm younger than some, but older than others.  I've coded on TRS-80s, TI99/4a, C64 and Apple.  I've used 8" floppies.  I've lived in DOS from >= version 3.  I've run NeXT, Amiga, GEOS, CP/M, OS/2, Desqview, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11.  I've run Snowball, Chicago, Nashville and Memphis, worked in Daytona and Cario.  I love Whistler, look forward to Longhorn and really don't understand how Blackcomb fits in.  I scored 60.85% on the geek test.  No doubt, you and I are alike.

I was on AOL 1.0, Compuserve, GEnie, Prodigy, all from DOS.  I've surfed with Lynx, read mail with pine.  I ran Mosaic, I now run Firebird. I ran vi, emacs, pico, PaperClip, WordStar, WP5.1, and Office 2003 Beta. 

I had 8k of RAM and now I have 1.5 gigs of RAM.  I had no hard drive, then a Winchester Hard Drive, now I have 425+ Gigabytes at my desk.  I had a keyboard, then a mouse, then a mouse with two buttons, now a wireless mouse and keyboard with 5 buttons and a scrolly-thing.

I remember Shift-F7 would print in Wordperfect, I'm not sure why I haven't overwritten that mental cluster with more useful information.  Certainly I've at least marked the braincell for deletion with the first character as E5h or something.  Now I have a GUI, which brings me the the point of this rant.  I certainly haven't seen it all, but darnit I've seen some of it.

I admit it, while I'm privvy to many a Microsoft Pre-Alpha, I have not seen anything of Lornhorn's "real" UI, nor what I'm really interested in - Avalon. 

If you do one thing before you go to PDC - look at the demos of Mac OS X's Panther.  What I want is for Avalon to blow this away.  I want to be impressed.  I want a WHOLE new world.  I want to see some Microsoft UI Research and Usability to really come to a dramatic fruition.  I know Avalon is a next-gen graphics subsystem, but I want to see what totally new UI paradigms (read: moving past Windowing and the Start Menu) can be built on it.  I want to make my 256 meg Video Card dual-head Video Card WORK.

I'm coming to PDC thoroughly hoping and expecting to be impressed with the promise of the future.  Am I impatiently expecting a revolution in UI, while Avalon may be a just stepping stone on the way to...?

Will I be disappointed?