Computer enthusiasts must still remember a major "gender issue" controversy ignited by Mr. Dvorak with his infamous iBook comments. While his gloomy "disaster" predictions have never materialized, there is an important lesson to be learned here. Perhaps for the first time in the industry's history, styling of a computing device became the major consideration, nearly eclipsing the ever-prevalent obsession with technical specifications.

There is also a good reason for the growing concern with PC's ease-of-use or, more specifically, lack thereof. This awareness was once again brought to the forefront by the brave people who stand behind the PalmPilot and the iMac. While the bread-and butter concept of a personal computer is far from dead, the "look-and-feel" issue is where the real action is. With speed ratings approaching the coveted 1GHz mark and mainstream processors being capable of delivering gigaflop performance, even the most basic PC of today has plenty of power.

With the iMac consistently topping the retail sales charts, both Intel and Microsoft are finally starting to realize that simplicity sells. In fact, their so-called Easy PC initiative is nothing more but an attempt to cash in on building iMac-like Wintel PCs. These "innovative" specifications forego parallel and serial ports, leave out the floppy drive, and make a strong case for USB. With some luck, emulating the iMac's success will not take that long.

However, this is just a humble beginning and even the iMac has its share of design idiosyncrasies. Worse yet, just one look at the back panel of a typical PC reveals more than a dozen (count them!) different kinds of ports. These could include PS/2, serial, parallel, game, USB, Firewire, SCSI, monitor, S-video, sound in and out, MIDI, Ethernet and modem ports. While this might sound like a rather pedestrian issue to the techno-savvy audience, it is simply downright intimidating for everybody else. There must be a better way!

USB is definitely a step in the right direction but it is hardly as "universal" as it could have been. First of all, it is just plain slow by today's standards. Secondly, not every operating system supports it. So far, Linux and NT are the most notable party poopers. Thirdly, the hyped "hot-swapping" technology is still far from being reliable. And, that is not to mention that USB peripherals are in short supply and, even those already available, are relatively expensive.

Still, the idea is mind blowing — why not replace all those scattered, arcane, funny-shaped ports with a row of alike ones, each one capable of recognizing virtually any external devices? Dream on, my dear readers, dream on…

Of course, this brings up the issue of whether we need actual physical ports all together. With some smart wireless connectivity it should be possible to design a system that is capable of communicating with any peripheral that is brought within a certain distance from the computer unit. Imagine an easy set-up guide that consists of a single line — "Take the device out of the packaging, plug it into the power outlet, and place within 5 feet of your computer." Wouldn't that be like paradise?

Naturally, you might wonder if cluttering one's workspace with numerous gadgets is such a good idea. After all, an "external processor upgrade" might not be a feasible solution. But then again, the options for today's internal upgrades are even more overwhelming than those for external ones. It certainly takes a well-informed person to tell the difference between a memory slot and a cache slot, PCI and AGP, IDE and SCSI, Slot 1 and Socket 7. Furthermore, it is never easy to tell whether a particular machine needs unbuffered 3.3Volt EDO DIMMs or PC100 ECC SDRAM. And, does anybody really need to know?

Now, a little bit of trivia. Did you know that ISA stands for "Industry Standard Architecture?" Hardly a standard, nowadays, mind you. Perhaps the time has come for a new all-inclusive standard for internal expansion. Could it be UUA, as in "Universal Upgrade Architecture?" In essence, whatever they may choose to call it, we need a powered slot capable of accepting a CPU, a memory module, a network adapter, or a solid state hard drive controller alike. Now, that's an idea!

So, here you have it, a perfect computer with only two kinds of interfaces, one for external connections and one for internal upgrades. And, most importantly, could we finally have plug-and-play that actually works? Or is the multi-trillion PC industry simply incapable of delivering on its age-long promise?