Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The evolution of the user interface


Heh.

12 comments:

  1. I don't say this nearly enough, but I just love your blog.

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  2. You've come a long way, Debian.

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  3. I must be getting old - recognize all those screens. Of course, I'm one of the dinosaurs who fought the advent of Windows tooth & nail. I had just mastered the edlin command in DOS, and didn't want to lose my mad skillz set.

    Oh well ... Windows 7 will probably be obselete before I finish typing this, so it's time to stop.

    Great post as usual, sir.

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  4. It it ain't broke...

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  5. Liberty's got it right... I STILL have my DOS 3.3 book :-) AND the commands still work on Windoze 7!

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  6. Y'know, there's a lot to be said for something that worked both "then" and "now, and worked CORRECTLY both "then" and "now"!

    I still chuckle at Microsoft's predictable yet uninspiring refrain for each new release: "The best version of Windows yet!"

    LOL!

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  7. When command lines are outlawed only Linux will have command lines.

    But be fair - Linux also has X Window, so there ought to be a lot more choices for the "now" picture.

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  8. If you like lots of choices, you can always open up the control panels folder in Windows 7. It is exactly one level deep, and makes users scroll through pages of icons that Microsoft renamed so you can't find the one you want.

    Microsoft aren't stupid--they learned from Apple--so you'll never catch them doing something daring like grouping the control panels in a searchable tree by category, with multiple collapsible levels so everything is clean and neat, like in KDE. They knew they had a winner with Windows 95, which is consequently why they never changed the interface in sixteen years.

    You might think that's a dig, but it's really not. The layout of the Apple desktop OS is exactly the same as it was the first time I saw it in 1984, with the addition of an icon bar on the bottom that came to be in the late 90s. I think it can be argued that the iPhone's success has a lot to do with its interface, whereas RIM is struggling to catch up by slimming down the controls on its devices.

    There's something to be said for having the right interface for the job to begin with, and never changing it.

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  9. OS X is UNIX, Linux is UNIX-like.

    Windows hopes that someday it can grow up and be like UNIX.

    Long live the command line!

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  10. I also recognize all of them.
    And the Linux is my preference.
    But the family likes their Windows and the MBWITW her iMac...
    SO my "reloading" computer located in the "reloading" cabinet...is Unbuntu.....

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  11. Why does this bring to mind my recent post on 1911s and Sharks.

    Yep they're old designs, do you REALLY want to argue with them?

    They're still around for a reason.

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