HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: faking it
From: hobbs_a@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz (Anthony 'the Bard' Hobbs)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 23:55:38 GMT
Reply-To: hobbs_a@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
 <1992Aug27.171551.2284@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> 
 <1992Aug28.041305.23183@peponi.wcc.govt.nz> 
 <1992Aug28.154802.13067@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>,<1992Aug30.145923.1@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz>
Organization: Wellington City Council, Wgtn, NZ

In article <1992Aug30.145923.1@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz>, quirke_a@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz writes:

Hi Tony! Good to see you back on a.r.k. Things have changed a lot since you
were last here. For one, Kibo told me that when he becomes President he's gonna
make me Supreme Dictator for Life of every place beginning with New. That means
you gotta give my goldfish a blowjob NOW!

>   I'm sorry dear, did you imply masturbation makes you go deaf ? I can't quite
>make it out, since my eyesight seems to be failing...

I thought you told me your short-sightedness was hereditary, Tony!

>   But, alas, one of the more common ones...

Speak for yourself, monkey boy. :-)

>Tony Q.
>no .sig, no money, no nothing !

That's not true. You do have something. For one thing, you still have those
books I lent you. AND I WANT 'EM BACK!!!

anthony
professional quirke-torturer since 1991
--
Anthony Hobbs             the Bard                hobbs_a@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz    
OverPope, First Holy and Unreformed Church of Frozen Yoghurt - romantic poet - 
synth player extraordinaire - kate bush is goddess - hail Eris - praise "Bob"!
DISCLAIMER: I am not Romanian and was not head of the Securitate for 15 years.
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology
From: klm@gozer.mv.com (Kevin L. McBride)
Subject: Siskel and Ebert
Organization: GhostBuster Central - Southern NH Usenet Access, Nashua, NH
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 92 14:50:52 GMT

Channel Surfing on Saturday morning, I happened upon Siskel and Ebert
at the end of their bozings.  During the credits it was announced that
"promotional considerations" had been paid by the makers of a variety
of products, including "Ex-Lax"

Coincidence?  I think NOT.

(I always get constipated watching that show.)

-- 
Kevin "Siskel and Ebert need an enema.  Yeah."
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Keywords: n
Organization: Mount Holyoke College
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 05:14:25 GMT

In article <id.3AOS.4A2@ferranti.com> peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva) writes:
>(then there's the question of WHY IT TAKES SO MUCH GODDAMN MEMORY...
>but that's apparently considered normal these days... I understand
>WNT will require 8 MB)

Like Apple's System 7 "requires" 2 MB.  The developers version of NT
is pretty crammed in 12 MB.  Let's call it 16 MB.  (But then, by the
time NT is released, 64 Mb DRAMs might be in production.)
--
Jurgen Botz                  |   Internet: JBotz@mtholyoke.edu
Academic Systems Consultant  |     Bitnet: JBotz@mhc.bitnet
Mount Holyoke College        |      Voice: (US) 413-538-2375 (daytime)
South Hadley, MA, USA        | Snail Mail: J. Botz, 01075-0629
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: "David Herron" <david@twg.com>
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Sensitivity: Personal
Encoding: 31 TEXT , 4 TEXT 
Conversion: Prohibited
Organization: The Wollongong Group, Inc., Palo Alto, CA
Conversion-With-Loss: Prohibited
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 17:53:37 GMT

[Peter da Silva rants about the amount of memory required by modern
GUIsh systems...]

jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) answers:

> Like Apple's System 7 "requires" 2 MB.  The developers version of NT
> is pretty crammed in 12 MB.  Let's call it 16 MB.  (But then, by the
> time NT is released, 64 Mb DRAMs might be in production.)

This is definitely one factor in how we can *afford* to do modern GUIsh
systems.  The cost of fast machines with lots of disk space and memory
is dropping quickly.  Memory is now ~$25/meg (4 meg simm's for $100) in
end-user quantities while 1-2 years ago it was $50/meg.  Disk space is
now $1.5-$2/meg generally, with $1/meg not uncommon (for largeish disks in
the 600+ meg range).  ~1 year ago I was feeling good over finding $2/meg
for a 600 meg disk..  &c &c

So why not spend some of this new `power' on making the user interface nicer?

Lots of people point at 3d borders on widgets and try to make fun of them.
Look at it from the other slant for a moment.. throw away the 3d borders
and use a Mac (pre System 7) or something written with Athena Widgets.
How does the user tell the difference between a button and a text entry 
box?  They both look *the* *same* (a box with text inside).  But on Motif 
(for instance) the button looks like a button because it's raised, while 
text entry areas look like text entry because they're sunken.  Yeah it takes
more code & CPU power to do this.  So what?  It isn't a lot and advantages
come from it.

I could go on, but there's work to do...


<- David Herron <david@twg.com> (work) <david@davids.mmdf.com> (home)
<-
<- "ISO is really just another politically correct one-world fantasy
<-  of the U.N." -- Gordon McLachlan (LAN Computing, Aug 1992, p. 37)
From: eugene@cs.umb.edu (Eugene O'Neil)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 3 Sep 92 03:21:31 GMT
	<PREECE.92Aug24170650@predator.urbana.mcd.mot.com>
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston


In article <PREECE.92Aug24170650@predator.urbana.mcd.mot.com> preece@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Scott E. Preece) writes:
   I'm sorry, but your objection is unconvincing.  Leaving aside, for the
   moment, the fact that some aspects of sending mail are clearly and
   obviously not CLI suitable (like composing the text of the message
   itself), your counter-example of providing a pattern and then selecting
   the desired instance is much more GUI-like than CLI-like.  CLI
   interfaces do not naturally handle interactive construction of commands.
   You're much better off, for the given case, having a text field you type
   names into and having the system either verify them or suggest
   alternatives for those that don't match.  That's still GUI-ish, even if
   it's not *just* selecting things from a list.

Just because many CLIs today are, well... badly written, does not mean
that they inherently cannot be interactive. A good example of a CLI that
handles interactive construction of commands is gnu BASH, (my favorite shell!)
which allows interactive command and filename completion. For example, if
I type the first few letters of a command or filename and hit TAB, it will
try to complete as much of the name as possible, up until there is more than
one possible choice for the next letter:  If I then hit tab again, it
will list all of the possible completions of the name. This sounds very much
to me like what you are saying is impossible to do with CLIs, and yet BASH
is simply a souped-up version of /bin/sh: you can't get much more command
line oriented than that!

You don't need bitmapped graphics to have interactive software. You just need
good software.
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:583 comp.windows.misc:1220 comp.windows.news:537 comp.windows.x:15773 comp.human-factors:1920
From: peter@ferranti.com (peter da silva)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:32:31 GMT
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC

In article <1992Aug26.175124.19683@twg.com> david@twg.com (David Herron) writes:
> [Peter da Silva rants about the amount of memory required by modern
> GUIsh systems...]

That's not a rant. If you want a rant, I'll give you one... but I'd like to
go off on a tangent... price...

> This is definitely one factor in how we can *afford* to do modern GUIsh
> systems.  The cost of fast machines with lots of disk space and memory
> is dropping quickly.

And so is the cost of not-so-fast machines with a reasonable amount of RAM
and rotating storage. It's now practical to sell a box roughly equivalent
to a Mac Classic without the monitor for about $300. Machines in this price
range open the door for a LOT more people to be able to afford an easy-to-use
computer. Apple claims the Mac is the computer for "the rest of us". Well,
*this* is what "the rest of us" can afford.

> So why not spend some of this new `power' on making the user interface nicer?

Fine, fine. Let's start by making some real improvements:

	multi-button mice with pop-up menus.
	clear visual cues indicating what applications are running.
	better scheduling algorithms.

The Mac API and system software have serious design problems, but it should
be possible to fix most of them with a single flag day. And the resulting
system would be MUCH faster and smaller (as proof, there are faster and
smaller systems out there).

> Lots of people point at 3d borders on widgets and try to make fun of them.
> Look at it from the other slant for a moment.. throw away the 3d borders
> and use a Mac (pre System 7) or something written with Athena Widgets.
> How does the user tell the difference between a button and a text entry 
> box?  They both look *the* *same* (a box with text inside).

No they don't. A button has rounded corners. Have you *used* a pre-S7 Mac?

> But on Motif 
> (for instance) the button looks like a button because it's raised, while 
> text entry areas look like text entry because they're sunken.  Yeah it takes
> more code & CPU power to do this.

No it doesn't, actually. It takes *less*, if you have a grayscale display.
But a grayscale display significantly increases the cost of the low-end
machine (suddenly the monitor is $300 instead of $100).

System 7 and Motif don't take more CPU power because they're rendering more
stuff. They take more CPU power because they're badly designed internally.
-- 
Peter da Silva                                               `-_-'
$ EDIT/TECO LOVE                                              'U` 
%TECO-W-OLDJOKE Not war?                        Have you hugged your wolf today?
Ferranti Intl. Ctls. Corp.      Sugar Land, TX  77487-5012       +1 713 274 5180
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
From: yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU (Chad Phillip Brown)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: /mit/yandros/.organizations
	<YANDROS.92Aug30173448@j-g-ballard.MIT.EDU> <Btv1sC.79B@mtholyoke.edu>
	<YANDROS.92Sep1003712@j-g-ballard.MIT.EDU>
	<NEERI.92Sep1141334@iis.ethz.ch>
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 00:49:41 GMT


    From: Me :-)
>>  (Does anyone know why there isn't a
>>  magic key sequence to get to the menubar, for instance?)

  From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
> There is one. It is not very difficult to write an extension for the
> Mac to do this; I wrote one myself a few years ago. If you have normal
> command of your hands, however, you will be hopelessly slower that by
> using the mouse.
> 
> There are also extensions to assign menu selections and mouse clicks
> to any desired key combination (QuicKeys, for example).

Yes, I understand that these kinds of things exist as extensions, but
I'm baffled as to why they need to be added on later, when it would be
such a simple thing to have built into the design of the original
system.  Having umpteen-jillion extensions makes 'Standard User
Interface' pretty difficult...  As for me being 'hopelessly slower'
than the mouse, I don't understand how you could really think it's
slower to move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse and then back
again as opposed to staying on the keyboard???

  From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
> The medium and high level user usually knows how to extend the user interface
> to his/her liking. I don't wnat to offend anybody, but I think most of the
> complaints about the fixed nature of the Mac UI are made by people who are
> power users of other machines, but casual users of the Mac.

I understand (and agree) with this, but, again:

  From: Me again. :-)
> I guess my
> main complaint is that Apple sems to have sacrificed the
> medium-to-high level user in favor of the the 'casual user', without
> (IMHO) real justification.

Saying 'The experienced user will usually know what the problem is'
will win you the hearts of many fans of U*NIX 'ed', but not many
others. :-)  My point is that the macintosh abandons the 'power user'
to a maze of extensions that make the Macintosh as nonstandardized and
setup-dependant as any U*NIX box, for no reason I can find.


--
-->Chad Phillip Brown<--||INTERNET:---->yandros@Athena.MIT.EDU
------------------------||NeXT:---------->yandros@milo.mit.edu
-->Student Information<-||UUCP:-->mit-eddie!mit-athena!yandros		
--->Processing Board<---||BITNET:------>yandros%mit.edu@mitvma
----->CSSConsultant<----||US:--->19 Myrtle;Somerville MA;02143
-------->IS-DCNS<-------||Voice:----------------->617-623-0877
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
From: skok@itwds1.energietechnik.uni-stuttgart.de (Holger Skok)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Inst. f. Thermodynamik u. Waermetechnik (ITW), U. of Stuttgart, FRG
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 07:29:39 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.162110.15032@cas.org> lvirden@cas.org (Larry W. Virden) writes:
[... stuff deleted]
>
>I don't know why folks have to take an either/or angle.  Let's make the
>user more proficient by giving them access to both environments and
>when it makes more sense to use shell, a CUI, a mouse, voice input, a
>blink of the eye, a sneeze/hiccup/burp/whatever then use it.  And make
>as many of the other accesses available as possible, for those with
>other priorities...
>-- 

Yeah, not a bad idea. But STANDARDIZE it!


It's bad enough to have to learn different sets of commands for
different OS's. But it's far worse to have to grapple with different
design and interfacing concepts for GUI's.
-- 
*************************************************
*	Those stupid, horse-brained masses! 	*
*			OPUS on honker surgery  *
*******************************************HSK***
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:688 comp.windows.misc:1335 comp.windows.news:629 comp.windows.x:16179 comp.human-factors:2067
From: mellon@ncd.com (Ted Lemon)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 2 Sep 92 21:31:29 GMT
Followup-To: alt.religion.computers

peirce@outpost.SF-Bay.org (Michael Peirce) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug31.145609.17818@dcatlas.dot.gov>, joet@dcatlas.dot.gov (Joe Trott) writes:
>> 
>> >Whose desk is clean enough, 100% (or close) of the time in order to use a
>> >Rat?
>I'd say my mouse doesn't move more than about two inches in any direction,
>my arm doesn't really move just my hand - and yes, I have a large screen
>area, one 16" monitor plus a portrait monitor.

>It's all standard Apple Macintosh equipment.

Hm.   I use a Logitech TrackBeing (actually, they call it a TrackMan, but
I prefer to use a less xenophobic term), and it works quite well.   This
is their new device, which came out fairly recently, and it's shaped so that
one can comfortably lay one's hand down on it and mouse around with the thumb,
while selecting with three fingers.   It never moves at all, and I can even
use it if there's junk piled up on it.   Win, win.

BTW, I don't work for, and have never worked for Logitech - I'm just a
fairly satisfied customer (I don't like their mice, so I'm not completely
satisfied).

				_MelloN_
--
mellon@ncd.com						uunet!lupine!mellon
Member, League for Programming Freedom | To learn how software patents could
cost you your right to program, contact the LPF - league@prep.ai.mit.edu
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:588 comp.windows.misc:1226 comp.windows.news:542 comp.windows.x:15792 comp.human-factors:1925
From: halvers@procyon.crd.ge.com (Pete Halverson)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x,comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 28 Aug 92 13:26:40 GMT
Reply-To: halverson@crd.ge.com (Pete Halverson)
Organization: GE Corp. Research & Development, Schenectady, NY

In article <RJC.92Aug27125334@daiches.cogsci.ed.ac.uk> rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.175124.19683@twg.com>, David Herron (dh) writes:
>dh> throw away the 3d borders and use a Mac (pre System 7) or
>dh> something written with Athena Widgets.  How does the user tell the
>dh> difference between a button and a text entry box?  They both look
>dh> *the* *same* (a box with text inside).
>
 ...
>
>In no way does any application need pseudo three-d weirdness just to
>tell a button from a text entry field. 

But the point to giving a button a visible "projection" isn't just to
distinguish it from other controls.  If that were the only reason, then
obviously you could make it a different shape, or a different font, or give
it an animated chaser marquee, or whatever.  The thing about having a 3d
look to a button is that, in theory anyway, it makes it much more evident
that it's supposed to be *pushed*.  To use Norman's term, it "affords"
pushing by providing a natural visual clue.  Similarly, the little 3d
widgies on the corners of an OpenLook window frame just beg to be grabbed
and pulled to stretch the window boundaries.  Conversely, something like
just making the buttons edges round gives no such visual clue unless you've
read the designer's style guide and sucessfully interned the
"round edges => pushable" association!

There *are* some bogus uses of 3d as well, no question, and some that
aren't as well-thought-out as they should be (I have the same problem as
another poster distinguishing state in Motif's check boxes/radio buttons),
but to indiscriminately trash all such features as "needless chrome" is to
ignore some very powerful stimuli that define how humans interact with
objects in the world.



Pete Halverson                                      INET: halverson@crd.ge.com 
GE Corporate R&D Center                       UUCP: uunet!crd.ge.com!halverson
Schenectady, NY
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:640 comp.windows.misc:1286 comp.windows.news:590 comp.windows.x:16025
From: bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Date: 2 Sep 92 04:40:20 GMT
Organization: IDK / Frontec, Sweden

In article <NEERI.92Sep1141334@iis.ethz.ch> neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher) writes:

[..on the subject of using keyboard instead of mouse..]

> If you have normal command of your
>hands, however, you will be hopelessly slower that by using the mouse.

What is "normal" in that case?
In those applications where the keyboard interface has been worked on as much
as the mouse interface, I mostly gain at least 150% from using the keys 
instead of the mouse.
The primary gain is that you don't have to move around looking for/opening
menus, dialog boxes etc. You just press a key and ZZAP, it's done.

This, of course, requires that I have worked with the tool for a while, 
during which a combined mouse/keyboard interface helps me to find those
comfortable fastkeys so I won't have to move the mouse around so much...

>There are also extensions to assign menu selections and mouse
>clicks to any desired key combination (QuicKeys, for example).

Well, yes. There are ways of getting menu controlled MS-DOS command lines too.
I hardly think of such hacks as arguments _for_ the UI, though... :-)

>The medium and high level user usually knows how to extend the user interface
>to his/her liking. 

I think the original poster was defining "high level user" as someone who 
knows how to use a keyboard *AND* a mouse efficiently, and also wants to do so
whatever the computer/UI in question might be.

At least I do.

>I don't wnat to offend anybody, but I think most of the
>complaints about the fixed nature of the Mac UI are made by people who are
>power users of other machines, but casual users of the Mac.

Naturally.

When I've learned my applications inside out I don't mind a poor interface,
since I've learnt all the dirty tricks to get the application to act as I want.

The casual user doesn't know all those tricks, and is therefore depending more
on a well designed user interface.

	-- Bjorn
      ///  Bjorn Stenberg, Stockholm, Sweden         bjst@sth.frontec.se
     ///  main() { printf(&unix["\021%six\012\0"],(unix)["have"]+"fun"-0x60);}
\\\ ///  "- Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version!"
 \\X//                                              -- Lord Vadic, Dec Wars
Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.human-factors,comp.windows.misc,comp.windows.news,comp.windows.x
From: neeri@iis.ethz.ch (Matthias Neeracher)
Subject: Re: GUIs Considered Harmful
Organization: Integrated Systems Laboratory, ETH, Zurich
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:06:19 GMT

In article <1992Sep2.171407.11876@news.cs.indiana.edu> "Ken Rawlings" <krawling@banana.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:
>        There are two relatively simple things that I want to do on a Mac that
>I _still_ have no idea how to do, even after reading all of the info-mac
>digests, and using Mac's extensively. 
>
>        #1: Send a postscript file to the printer. Just shove that baby down
>            the serial connection to the printer.

A minor point: Laserprinter are usually *not* connected with a serial (RS-232)
connection, they are networked.

>            No, I don't want to modify
>            it in a word processor, or anything else. Here's the file, across
>            the room is a postscript printer. Send it. I've talked to
>            _numerous_ people that consider themselves "Mac Gods" and they
>            all agreed, "Can't be done without a special program, and I don't
>            know where you'd find it"

Can't be done without a special program, but I know how to find it :-)

ftp to sumex-aim.stanford.edu, file info-mac/util/sendps-20.hqx

Maybe this situation will change in the not-too-distant future (the printing
architecture is one of the oldest and quirkiest part of the Mac), but the
problem with a postscript file is that it is not obvious whether to print it as
a postscript file or as a text file.

>        #2: See this file sitting on the Hard Drive? Execute it. No, I don't
>            care that you think it's a "Document", just trust me and run the
>            damn thing.

Trust me: There is no way it could run, because it is not yet in the correct
Mac format. 

>            This is a _real_ problem when you have a bunch of
>            .hqx files, and have a copy of binhex4.bin that you downloaded
>            with a PC

So convert these .hqx files with Stuffit, or Compact Pro, or tickle. Would you
expect to read uuencoded files on unix without uudecode ?

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher                                   neeri@iis.ethz.ch
  "... Rice walked out wondering if the world was nothing but wimps,
   pimps, psychos and sex fiends" -- James Ellroy, _Suicide Hill_
Xref: sparky alt.religion.computers:673 comp.windows.misc:1319 comp.windows.news:618 comp.windows.x:16129 comp.human-factors:2051