From: u9147063@cs.uow.edu.au (Richard Barry Ling)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Macintosh advocacy (really!)
Date: 18 Nov 92 23:01:48 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University, Australia


   
bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

> Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA
> Lines: 125

>  u9147063@cs.uow.edu.au (Richard Barry Ling) writes:
> >  bcoleman@hayes.com (Bill Coleman) writes:

> > >  The Mac is MORE POWERFUL because it has only one button. Less IS more.
> >  
> >  But of course!  The fact that there is only one button increases CPU
> >  throughput by 10%, right?  More powerful?  hahah

> Sure it increases CPU throughput. Because the CPU spends less time waiting
> in an idle loop while the user decides which mouse button to press!

Two points here

1. On a multitasking machine the CPU can be doing other things.  Even if a
program is polling for the mouse button, with pre-emptive multitasking the
other programs still get a chance to run.

2. After an hour or so on an Amiga, no user is in the dark about which button
to use, since each button serves a very specific and unvarying function.  On
the Mac, there is no option for people to move onto a multi-button mouse
(providing greater freedom) after they spend an hour mastering a one-button
mouse; they are locked into it for life.

> >  Is the next step to eliminate the excess keys from the keyboard?  Surely
> >  if the next generation of Macs had only a space bar, new users would be
> >  far less confused.  

> This is an ad homenim argument. You are reducing a point to its absurd 
> conclusion. You are not dealing with the facts. You deserve no reply.

Well done.  Point being, attempting to make a system as simple to use as
possible will inversely affect its functionality.  The fact that Mac has one
mouse button makes it (just a tad) easier to master than an Amiga with two.
But it reduces the functionality.

> (But, just for fun, if 2 mouse buttons are good, 3 would be better -- how
> about 8? 10? 20? 100? Even better!)

This is the reverse; high functionality but too complex to use.  You must
have weird hands if you can use a mouse with 100 buttons...  been sticking
them in radioactive waste lately?

> >  I understand Apple does everything it can to un-confuse new users, 

> Why are only *NEW* users confused? I'm an experienced user, and I've had
> my confused times as well. Heck, I know enough to WRITE the doggone
> applications myself, and I still get confused.
> When will you "experienced" users get it through you head that "less
> confusing" is also good for the experienced computer user as well as the
> "new" user?

Strange... I never get confused about which button to press.  Hell, there's
only two.  I'm sure even Mac users (grin) can concentrate enough to use a
two-button mouse!

> >  I notice that throughout the Mac's history a control key, cursor keys,
> >  numeric keypad, an escape key and numerous function keys have been added.

> The original keyboard had a numeric keypad, although it was optional. Apple
> has added these other features, but it has a love/hate relationship with 
> function keys. You can get keyboards with function keys, but unless you get
> something like QuicKeys, you can't use them. Frankly, I think function keys
> are next to useless.

I have all my function keys bound to commonly used applications, frequently
entered CLI commands, cut/copy/paste etc. and would be frustrated if I had
to make trips to the menu bar or wade through systems of requestors for
these functions.

With a more complex system, new users can use the menus and requestors, more
advanced users can hit hotkeys without taking their hands from the keyboard.
Provided, of course, your keyboard has any decent hotkeys.  Looking at this
Mac right here running the terminal emulator, I see it only has one
available (clover key).

> >  I wonder how long it will be before another mouse button comes into play.

> Don't hold your breath. There are already third parties that have come out
> with multiple-button mice.

How widely distributed are they?  What software supports them?  If the OS
has no support for them, nobody will buy one.  Then will you assume Mac
users don't want more than one mouse button?

If another button was to be introduced, software would have to support it to
make it viable. (There'd have to be a keyboard equivalent, for users of
single-button mice.)  Then you may find it becomes very popular with more
experienced Mac users.

> >  Like on the NeXT or Windows, but unlike on the Amiga where the right mouse
> >  button plays a very specific and consistent role.  The right mouse button
> >  saves one's hand a lot of trips to the keyboard.

> But we're back to the confusion over which mouse button to press.

Alas, the misinformation that comes with inexperience... *sigh*
Please see above about the well-defined use of mouse buttons on Amiga...

> > >  >  The mac seems incapable of working in real time. I often get frustrated
> > >  >  holding down the button on the menu bar waiting for a Mac to produce a
> > >  >  menu; often waiting for many seconds if it is busy with screen update
> > >  >  or some processor-intensive work. 
> >  
> > >  Sounds like there is something functionally wrong with your Mac. Perhaps
> > >  you ought to take it in for servicing.
> >  
> >  There is; its disk DMA and pre-emptive multitasking appears to be
> >  malfunctioning.  Thus, when the disk drive is going, everything stops.  

> The Mac doesn't have preemptive multitasking unless you are running A/UX.
> Are you running A/UX? No? Well run it and your problem will go away.

A/UX is expensive, huge, memory hungry, CPU intensive, and requires a Sun
workstation, which is not a cheap piece of hardware.  And it still does not
make the Mac pre-emptively multitask, because Macs cannot pre-emptively
multitask.  Think A/UX will make the problem go away?  Sounds like a source
of endless new problems to me.

> > >  Apple studied the use of proportional scroll bars. They found that they
> > >  were NOT intuitive. They confused users. They did this through expensive
> > >  user testing, not some survey of technogeeks.
> >  
> >  What an expensive waste of time, considering that they came up with the
> >  wrong result, according to myself and every other Mac user I have talked to
> >  with the exception of one.

> How can they come up with the "wrong" result? Again, they didn't survey a
> bunch of technogeeks like you or me. Instead, they tested real live users.
> People who haven't necessarily warped their brains to think like computers.
> You know -- REAL people. 

> These people found them UNINTUITIVE. That's a fact. Accept it.

I accept it, and only feel glad that Commodore did not lock its users into
non-proportional scroll bars, just for the sake of the first few hours when
the new user is learning to use the system.  I have no recollection of ever
being confused by proportional scroll bars while learning about my system.

> > >  Apple does MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of testing. I suspect Apple spends more on
> > >  testing then Commodore makes yearly.
> >  
> >  If only they spent it on the right things.  It's nigh on ten years since the
> >  Mac was developed and the most powerful 68040 Mac still can't format a
> >  floppy in the background.

> The Mac was introduced in 1984. That's 8 years.

Clap clap :-)

> > >  This is not an issue with System 7.
> >  
> >  This seems to be an all-too-frequent excuse; why couldn't they simply get it
> >  right at some stage during systems 1-6?

> I don't understand. Apple has recognized a failing of their system software
> and fixed it. Now you complain they didn't fix it soon enough?

Many of the Mac advocacy articles here, arguing about graphics quality,
sound, multitasking, you name it, seem to consist solely of several
instances of the phrase "This is not an issue in System 7".  How many Mac
users have System 7?  None that I know.  I certainly can't run it on this
machine.

> Sheesh. Get a life.

Yes folks, it's the familiar usenet "get a life" catch-phrase; grossly
overused and devoid of meaning.  Think about it - did using this really add
anything to your arguments?

> -- 
> Bill Coleman, AA4LR                ! CIS: 76067,2327    AppleLink: D1958
> Principal Software Engineer        ! Packet Radio: AA4LR @ W4QO
> Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. ! UUCP: uunet!hayes!bcoleman
> POB 105203 Atlanta, GA 30348 USA   ! Internet: bcoleman%hayes@uunet.uu.net
> Disclaimer: "My employer doesn't pay me to have opinions."
> Quote: "The same light shines on vineyards that makes deserts." -Steve Hackett.

________________________________
Richard.  u9147063@cs.uow.edu.au
#include <standard_disclaimer.h>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.advocacy