The new tech buzzword seems to be cloud computing. This is not a new idea. Terminal timesharing on mainframes and minicomputers was the dominant form of computing before personal computers and the internet. The notion of accessing and sharing data remotely through terminals predates the current microcomputer age.
WI instead of the individual home personal microcomputer of the late 1970's and early 1980's, people rented teleprinter or CRT terminals from a telco and logged in to minicomputer banks?
France had the Minitel system in the 1980's and 90's. This online phonebook/BBS/craigslist/use imagination was not really a personal terminal. Sure, a user could check phone numbers and do some primitive social-networking, but the minitel terminal was not designed for personal word-processing and number crunching.
Let's say that in the 1970's in North America (for example), people could rent teleprinters or CRT terminals from the telco and access remote minicomputer banks for word processing, spreadsheet, phone directory, and email services?
I could see a timeline like this:
In 1976 or 1977, Bell Telephone in the US unveils Home Phone Computing (HPC). Telco subscribers could rent a dumb terminal teleprinter or a CRT smart terminal. The CRT could be had with an optional outboard daisywheel printer. Both terminals would be mated to 300 bit/s modems. The CRT systems would have the word processing, phone book, and email software pre-loaded on ROM to cut down on online time and bandwidth use. The software would be extremely simple: programs akin to vi (or later) pico for word processing, a modified/simplified lynx-like program for phone number searches, and a pine or elm like program for email.
Users would rent time in a manner similar to prepaid cellphone plans. Unlike current DSL/cable modem services, there would be no pricing by bandwidth (at least initially). Users would pay a per-minute charge when exceeding the limits of pre-purchased time.
The national system would be run on a byzantine-leveled access version of AT&T Unix. Each medium to large-sized city would have a bank of minicomputers to process and administrate the system, with the rental fees (optimally) used for the maintenance of these systems and the salaries of personnel.
By 1984, the system has yet to break even since only 15% to 20% of households subscribe to HPC. The US Supreme Court-mandated breakup of the AT&T/Bell monopoly in that year leads to significant changes in the HPC system. In turn, more and more users sign up to the system.
After the breakup, independent computer hardware vendors begin to sell CRT smart terminals for ownership. This shift towards a retail model is not unlike the move towards phone ownership after the breakup of Ma Bell. Certain CRT smart terminals even come with ROM cartridge ports for enhanced word processors, spreadsheet software, and even games. Rival telcos with rival minicomputer banks offer more competitive minute packages and faster data options (albeit with a higher cost for higher bandwidth.) Some municipalities even start their own co-op minicomputer banks with community sysadmin volunteers.
By 1987, HPC email becomes partially integrated with the ARPANET/NSFNET, the predecessors of the OTL Internet. Integration with ARPA initiates an emall communications interface with other HPC-like systems in developed countries.
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There are certainly advantages and disadvantages to this system.
1) Datasharing overcomes many of the limitations of early home computing data storage. Anyone who's tried to load any program from an audiocassette knows how error-prone, time-consuming, and frustrating this task is. Datasharing over 300 or 1200 bit/s systems is about the same speed as early microcomputing data storage interfaces. The advantages of datasharing might disappear with faster, easier to use, more reliable, and cheaper local storage alternatives.
2) Will individual users willingly rent time from a computer cluster or mainframe? For decades, municipalities and smaller educational institutions often rented time from universities. Would this model work in a consumer market?
3) Will microcomputers as we know them today emerge anyway? Will these privately owned, local data storage machines interface with a national minicomputer network? Would private microcomputer ownership eventually overtake or supplant the above-mentioned WI?