Prescience

From a Usenet posting way back from 1984.

Since it now appears almost certain that optical Compact Disc (CD) drives are "on the way", it would seem to make sense to ask what impact this trend will have.

What will be put on these disks?

What sorts of databases will become available? Obviously dictionaries, encyclopaedias, etc - but what else? Super clip art volumes? All of the works an artist, in super resolution and color? "Chunks" of encoded music, ready to run a synthesizer? Catalogs of digitized sound effects, to add to your software or include in your letters home (Oink! said the postcard...)? Will all future textbooks be on CD as well as printed?

No matter what is going to happen, it sure looks like the CD is going to have a huge impact on the personal computer industry. I think we can expect a fair number of unimaginative uses, at first, (EG a huge collection of IBM PC software) followed by a fair sized flood of innovative products, and perhaps a "data revolution" that finally makes the "microcomputer revolution" a reality. So how about it - what's likely to come?

How will wikis and the architecture of the Internet change the publishing industry? Will it?

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