[extropy-chat] Computers as you like

[BillK]

<http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0601.html?printable=1>

Personal Fabrication
by Neil Gershenfeld

'The next big thing in computers will be personal fabrication: allowing
anyone to make fully functioning systems -- with print semiconductors
for logic, inks for displays, three-dimensional mechanical structures,
motors, sensors, and actuators. Post-digital literacy now includes 3D
machining and microcontroller programming. For a few thousand dollars, a
little tabletop milling machine can measure its position down to
microns, so you can fabricate the structures of modern technology, such
as circuit boards'.


So it won't be long before we can make computers optimized for our own
requirements. Initially it will probably mean hiring time at your local
fabrication plant, where you can rearrange the designs to your own spec.
But it might later become cheap enough to have your own fab plant.

Eugene will be able to make his own version of 'Blue Gene'
(or will that be 'Blue Eugene' by then?). Spike will have a specialized
prime number seeker humming away in the corner (currently seeking a
prime number at levels higher than the number of atoms in the galaxy).
John Bradbury will have a system doing protein folding and unfolding in
minutes (with jars of newly-designed DNA stacked neatly along his garage
wall).

Me? Oh, I'll probably have a multi-processor system glowing red-hot and
emitting jets of super-heated steam as it tries to understand the latest
tax forms.

BillK