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The Future & History of the User Interface
An anonymous reader writes "The Mac Observer is taking a look at UI development with lots of video links to some of the latest developments in user interfaces. It also has links to some of the most interesting historical footage of UI developments, here's one of the 1968 NLS demo. From the article: 'Sadly, a great many people in the computer field have a pathetic sense (or rather ignorance) of history. They are pompous and narcissistic enough to ignore the great contributions of past geniuses... It might be time to add a mandatory "History of Computers" class to the computer science curriculum so as to give new practitioners this much needed sense of history.'"
Crow T. Trollbot
Graphical User Interfaces are intuitive because you can remember the location of things.
That's easy. It's at c:/>Files\Home\Photos\1997\Family\Snaps\*.jpg
duh.
Could be taken on an 'oliday...Know what I mean? Eh? Wink Wink.
The following replies are posted by unwashed nerds.
"It might be time to add a mandatory "History of Computers" class to the computer science curriculum so as to give new practitioners this much needed sense of history.'"
Oh please no.
I had a mandatory Computers class in 6th grade (and again in 7th and 8th grade, with the exact same lesson plan). Half of this class was rudimentary BASIC programming on a room full of TRS-80s, the ones with the integrated green monochrome displays--and this was circa 1990.
The other half of the class was a purported history of computing, the key facts of which I can still recite today (learning the same thing thrice causes it to stick). These facts are:
- Charles Babbage made a mechanical computer.
- Then there were the UNIVAC and the ENIAC.
- The term "bug" is due to an actual bug Ada Lovelace found inside a computer.
- There are four kinds of computer: supercomputer, mainframe, minicomputer, and microcomputer.
- RAM stands for "random access memory"; ROM stands for "read only memory".
- Cray supercomputers are cool-looking.
- 10 PRINT "FART!!! "
- 20 GOTO 10
- RUN
i have fvwm2 fixed up pretty nice with full paging & edge wrap. once you get the hang of it then going back to icons on a taskbar is klumsy and slow...
I'm sorry. "Klumsy" is a trademarked adjective of a different desktop environment. You have been warned.
You've seen a nipple? Get off of Slashdot, you're no longer one of us.
Most of that stuff can be done with two mice. Why hasn't anyone implemented that yet?
Because all innovation in the computer industry comes from the field of pornography.