The computer is a very important and versatile tool, if today's market is any indicator the one in 2020 will be filled with a much wider variety of options.
A peripheral refers to any part of the computer that isn't absolutely essential to its operation. Such as the mouse or the scanner. The market for peripherals is huge and always growing as new ideas are put forth. This are some of the one that might be available in 2020.
Displays refer to the ways in which data on the computer maybe viewed or used by the user.
1. Standard Flexible Display: This is the common TV substitute used in CP2020, and found in the first chrome book, it a crystal display screen capable of being folded for storage and linked to additional units to increase picture size. It is fairly cheap and provides an effective and portable 2-d viewing surface. There are newer versions, that cost nearly 5 times as much, that have touch/tactile control surfaces.
2. High Resolution Display: This is the standard display type sold in home computer packages. It is usually a solid state display capable of extremely fine detail, but is not particularly portable. Again for higher price a touch control interface can be added.
Microdisplay Screen: This addition is often found on laptop and cyberdeck models. It allows a very limited amount of data to be present in a reasonable resolution. Most such units won't have touch controls, but some palmtop units might.
3. Times Square Data Link: With a simple to add plug-in your computer can be set to transmit data directly through an I/O port to your cyberwear allowing total privacy for viewing. For slightly more money it is possible to add a cellular link to the process allowing the user to access his computer remotely over a distance (of course some variants of ICE might be a threat via this method). When added to a verbal command set up this allows the user to make full use of his set up regardless of where he is located. Though some delay and quality degradation might be expected.
4. Cybermodem VR Interface: This is of course the most effective way to view your computer's data, through a fully interactive VR interface.
Storage or capacity is the measure of how much data your computer can hold at any one time. Unlike a cybermodem a computer has to store and handle vast amounts of data. I typically use values that are at least 50 to 100 times higher than cybermodem values.
1. Diskdrive: The hardrive may be obsolete in today's cybermodems, but its cheap and easy to build. It has a limited life span due to wear and tear of a spinning magnetic medium but hardrives can store and access huge amounts of data in a relatively small area. Values could be as high as 1000MU (I use 10megs as an MU equivalent, this means drives of up to 100gigs).>
In theory I'll be adding to this page over time. Reformatted on December 16th, 2000