Incredible web site you've got there, Oafbot. Everybody should visit it to see how high is the professional caliber of people who are members of ITT.

The movement in X as a remote display protocol for the past several years, since X began its renaissance from near death in the mid 90's, is to make design changes and extensions which either establish on or transfer the individual graphics experience to the user side of the software balance equation.

Displays already have very sophisticated graphics circuits but the circuits which are affixed to the rear side of the LCD displays need to continue to integrate functions which are typically found on graphics cards and motherboard-based graphics subsystems. When the discrete functions of graphics cards are integrated with graphics chips and when the discrete functions of graphics chips are integrated with the display circuits themselves (instead of with a CPU) then the display rightly acquires the power to do the 'work' that impresses the user. The CPU should be remote to the user and should do the things that are not unique to the user - things like running application algorithms and manipulating data that is relevant to and shared by all users.

What comes over the network to terminals are not the raw images and video that characterize TV broadcasts, however. The network-driven terminal only needs information about what it is supposed to do for an individual user and undertakes the job of how to do it - the 'doing' of it - up to its display circuitry and built-in graphics engine.

There's no reason for any user on any graphics display that is network driven (i.e., a terminal) to suffer graphics performance limitations. Television has been done with a brute-force video approach which is to be rejected in the future. IP television and network-driven software must use intelligent, compressed data for graphics and video - packet video. Gates is directly fuelling the fear the PC-uber-alles crowd thrives on - that display terminals and network-driven graphics are inherently unsuitable - does not belong in today's world.

For my part, I wish that the $100 PC was a $100 touchscreen network display. It would be something very much like the next generation 770. Sadly, I think that as a PC it may well fail - and that as a next-gen 770 it would be a huge success. The people at MIT need to get out more. Copying Bill Gates vision 'PCs Everywhere for Everybody doing Everything' is no plan at all if you want to help the people of the world benefit from the Internet and all the technology around it.