Originally posted by Kunzite
You're forcing this analogy, but it's as invalid as most analogies. There's no connection between your punch cards and teletypes and the optical reflex viewfinder. And, how funny, you're talking as if the current SLR viewfinder systems don't have electronics and are not controlled by computers...
Keyboards are essentially mechanical devices, and so are mices. Printers are essentially mechanical as well, with lots of moving parts - they have to mechanically feed a sheet of paper and then imprint an image using a mechanical system (cylinders or moving heads).
For typing, as I said, you can't easily replace a keyboard: the tactile feedback you're getting is priceless (and by the way, many are preferring the old keyboards because of the better feedback). There are cool gadgets like a projector-camera system, projecting a virtual keyboard on your desk on which you can type. That would make your fingers hurt in no time.
About VoiceType (sold by IBM few years ago), what device would you use to correct the voice recognition's mistakes?
What you're forgetting is that the movable mirror's role is to allow a TTL optical viewfinder (and this is the important part, not the mirror). You're not arguing for the replacement of the mechanical parts, but also for the optical ones.
By the way, how many digital cameras can survive for 40-50 years?
My K-5 IIs is able to shoot at 7 fps and it has a 11 point AF system (9 being cross type, able to work down to -3EV). 7fps is not exactly impressive, and the 11 point AF system is much less so. Could you spot any improvement from your S1A and SFX-n?
And... there is no Moore's Law. You're trying to extend something which doesn't exist to the EVFs, nice try but it won't work.
See Moore's Law in Wikipedia! If you mean "it is an observation, not a "physical law", true, but so what? It makes no difference here that it is a reliable observation rather than a physical law! Here is a quote from Wikipedia which reveals how relevant and important it is here:
"Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster).
"The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.The paper noted that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years".His prediction has proven to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development.
"The capabilities of many digital electronic devices are strongly linked to Moore's law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras.All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well (see Other formulations and similar laws). This exponential improvement has dramatically enhanced the impact of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy.Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries."
The analogy I gave is good - because it is an
analogy, not
equality or
identity! ("
Analogy": "A relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation"). It is my observation (and also obvious to the world) that we are step by step replacing mechanical actions with electronic ways of achieving the requirements, and that this brings down per-instance costs, increases the scope of innovation, and typically increases reliability. I am using my personal experience of computers since I first programmed one in 1965 to extrapolate to other electronic subsystems, especially EVFs. It is common to start by supplementing the mechanical actions with electronic ones, but that often isn't the end. Disc drives have more electronics associated with them than when they were first introduced. But solid state discs do away with the mechanical bits altogether. The same is happening to viewfinders - of course OVFs have been supplemented by electronics over the years. But now EVFs do away with the mechanical bits.
See also "
Why Moore's Law Applies to Photography".