Priesthood
Volume Number: 11
Issue Number: 1
Column Tag: Inside Info
It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like This 
The people lost. The priesthood won.
By Chris Espinosa, Apple Computer, MacTech Magazine Regular Contributor
My introduction to computers was back in the days of timesharing, when the closest I
got to an actual computer was a Teletype® terminal at the other end of a 110-baud
modem from an HP 2000-series minicomputer running BASIC. When I saw my first
Altair, IMSAI, and Apple I computers, and saw that I could have a whole computer to
myself, it seemed like the best possible way to do computing: take away the wires,
connections, logins, system builds, IPLs, and layers of software isolating me from the
thing that did the computing.
One of the most important books I read in those days was called Computer Lib,
written by the hypertext visionary Ted Nelson. The topic (if a book composed of
clippings, hand drawings, old photos, illustrations copied from Wizard of Oz books, and
other flotsam could have a topic) was that computing was a democratic force; that
smaller, cheaper computers could have an effect on technological society like the Colt
.45 had on the society of the West; and that it was possible - and necessary - for
non-technologists to understand computers now.
The combination of Nelson’s subversive ideas and the power of the personal
computer were a volatile combination. A lot of people in the early days of personal
computing had strong anti-government, libertarian, individualist ethics. The early
hacker movement was motivated by the same sentiments. And of course, a lot of these
people were entrepreneurs too. Some were corporate refugees, some classic go-getter
small businessmen, and others (like Steve Wozniak) just people with good ideas told
by others that they should build a few of their boxes and sell them.
bureaucrats, technocrats, stuffed shirts, corporate types, and gatekeepers who Kept
People Away From Computers. Nelson printed urban folk legends about high schoolers
tweaking them. Crackers broke into their systems and annoyed them. And the
entrepreneurs of the personal computer movement built an industry with the specific
purpose to take the power away from them and distribute it to the people.
Well, the people lost. The priesthood won.
They won in that the personal computer industry is controlled by and dominated by the
influence of people who value complexity. The culture of problem-solvers, who revel
in complexity that makes them needed, won out over the culture of simplifiers, who
try to eliminate complexity and move on to other things.
The problem-solvers were institutionalized in the mainframe and minicomputer
installations, and originally rejected personal computers because they were “toys.”
The damning trait of toys is not that they’re not useful, but that toys don’t require
system administrators, and help desks, and technical support, and training, and
repair, and reviews, and seminars, and the rest of the multi-billion-dollar decision
making infrastructure that was already in place in the mainframe and mini markets.
Because Altairs, IMSAIs, and Apple IIs didn’t need any of these, they were not worth
paying attention to.
Then came DOS, VisiCalc, and Novell. When individual personal computers
streamed into business, education, and government in enough quantities to really be
useful, the infrastructure latched onto the place where it found it could add the most
value. And that was the incomprehensibility of the operating system to the mere
mortal. Ordinary people could understand spreadsheets and word processors, and could
make a purchase decision, learn to use one, and get work done. But OSs, system
configuration, IRQs, DIP switches, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files got beyond the
ken of the ordinary computer user. Users didn’t need the OS or understand why it was
there - but they were convinced that they needed someone to manage it for them, and
the priesthood could live.
If you’re in the Silicon Valley you have a chance to see the priesthood up close.
It’s bigger now than it ever was in the ‘70s, and it proudly coexists with the
techno-laity. Metropolitan daily newspapers carry ads for IDE drives, math
co-processors, and local bus adapters as if they were potatoes or toilet paper. Weekly
business newspapers carry articles that give step-by-step OS tuning instructions.
This is madness! There are a lot of other contemporary, high-tech systems that
have popped up in the last 50 years without this happening. Do you need to have your
cellular phone reconfigured every time you want to talk to a new person? Have you
seen any ads in your daily paper touting the best selection of distributor rotors, fuel
pumps, and timing belts? Do you know of companies who have a 30-person help desk
to help employees use the copiers and elevators?
The real tragedy of all this is that all this serves to reinforce, not defeat, the
priesthood. Because we need them to help us make our current systems work, we
entrust them to make decisions about the next generation of systems - and it is
extremely unlikely that they will choose simple, useful, uncomplicated systems that
will make them powerless and unnecessary. So they drive manufacturers to continue
to develop systems in the vernacular of the priesthood. This is not out of greed or guile
- it’s all they know.
Unfortunately, this spills over into areas even the priesthood doesn’t control.
The current pathetic state of home computers is due to design decisions made on the
business side of the house. In reality, Apple II ProDOS or the Amiga’s OS were both
much more appropriate operating systems for the home than Mac or Windows. But
Apple, Microsoft, Compaq, and IBM had to serve the emerging home market with a
product derived from the business line - and the pundits, columnists, and IS managers
dictated that those systems have support for features that home users never use. So
Packard Bell bundles Windows for Workgroups with every home computer, and Apple
ships a Wide Carriage LaserWriter driver on every Performa.
I’m afraid that the current generation of personal computers, and all their
spawn, are hopelessly corrupted by the needs of the priesthood to perpetuate
complexity. I had hope for the PDA generation, but from what I have seen of Magic Cap
and Newton, they’re both ripe for layers of Corporate Purchase Requirements. The
only platforms I see that are so far untouched by the pundits and IS managers are Sega
and Nintendo - and I wish them well.