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GUI Revolutions: From Flashing Bulbs To Windows 8
StormDriver writes "GUI has been with us for years and it went a long, long way since the early days. There were some fairly interesting developments along the way, so we took the time to line them up for you."
Is that reality is never as good as possibility, because any idea will end up being moulded for the personal gain of a particular business or government. Whether it's lock-in on the desktop or sending your information off to the cloud, we'll never see a decent peer-to-peer collaborative system as long as humans are designing, building, deploying and maintaining it.
This article doesn't scratch the surface, and looks more like an advertisement for Windows 7 and 8.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100101033213/http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html
There's history for ya.
Wayback Machine mirror so as to not nuke the poor guy's site.
--
BMO
I don't see mobile GUI's in there. Surely Palm's early offerings qualify as a "before" and iOS & Android as an "after" ... and Magic Cap as in "in between". Desktops aren't the only place we use GUI's.
âoeWhat I saw in the Xerox PARC technology was the caveman interface, you point and you grunt. A massive winding down, regressing away from language, in order to address the technological nervousness of the userâ.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
"Douglas Englebart was a true visionary. On a single conference on Deceber 9, 1968, he performed a live demonstration that showed working prototypes of a computer mouse, hypertext, email, word processor, and collaborative real-time editor." However, you will note the lack of a working spellcheck. Or else Deceber is a month that only existed in the 60's.
Our brain is well suited to work with visual clues, and computers soon learned to use that.
What will computers think up next?
Why do you use "GUI" as if it's a singular proper noun? And "it went a long, long way since the early days" just sounds retarded.
In future, all screens will be touchscreen, even your main PC monitor. The major breakthrough was the self-lubricating touchscreen. It's naturally oily, and hypo-allergenic, requiring no cleaning.
Of course, the mouse driven paradigm needed to be scrapped completely, in favour of a adult finger-painting gesture system. Mod someone down on slashdot? There's a gesture for that. There's an intuitive gesture for absolutely everything. Just install the gesture localization pack.
True, I can't find any of my LOCAL applications any more, but that's fine because I can just google for them, and they'll turn up some place.
It's going to be a good future.
Space Nutters like tomsthudson have assured me that computers only exist because of NASA and Apollo in particular.
That's almost hysterical. If anything, windows 3.1 was revolutionary but that's only in the Microsoft context.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
What was true then is true today. No GUI comes close to matching the expressive power of the command line. GUIs are still a silly prop for kids.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You people are spoiled rotten. We had abacus AND WE LIKED IT!
Don't forget gutsy
which is totally what she said
Oh, so it looks like we went from blinkenlights to terminals to Windows without stopping, and any form of interface other than that is either irrelevant or obsolete. I guess they actually consider it the end-all and be-all.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
Task switching without hint as to how much further to the task you are actually looking for, only allowing non-overlapping windows. It's essentially Windows 1.0 on those fronts.
Microsoft saw iPhone acheieve apparent success making a giant phone, and MS wants every desktop to be that way. Further making things worse, they are ignoring the market reality and declaring WP7 the most awesome interface for phones and giant phones.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Am I the only person who would actually prefer the Windows 3.1 interface to still be around today? No more "close next to maximise", a nice "desktop" that you can organise how you like, and in subfolders, without things popping up at random places on the screen, and no Start Menu / Taskbar / Quick Launch horror, and everything taking precisely as much effort to draw as absolutely necessary (no gradient title bars, horrid skins, etc.).
There was something sweet, simple, endearing and DAMN FAST about the 3.1 shell that I haven't found anywhere since. It flew even on 200MHz machines.
"in the beginning, Apple and Microsoft were cooperating .. Bill Gates and his workers adopted many GUI ideas, in order to use them in their upcoming products .. In 1983, they announced they’re working on an own graphical interface, called Windows ... link
Pirates of Silicon Valley
"Here is the true story of when it all goes down. This is the part when Steve Jobs & Apple find out that Bill Gates & Microsoft have stolen Apple's OS, changed some things around & are calling it their own (Windows)"
Now I have an i7-2600k with 8gig memory...and Windows 7. It's hardware is 5 times faster than my last PC, yet it's slower and has more trouble than XP. Why is Microsoft doing everything try can to make my life more difficult, and now Windows 8 is on the horizon. Can we hurry up the Quantum computers so it will be fast, like Windows 95 on Pentium 4's again?
Try "from flashing bulbs to iOS", or "from flashing bulbs to Android". If you're searching for the modern pinnicle of GUI evolution, the desktop GUI ain't it (especially windows, released or unreleased). The desktop GUI was perfected 10 years ago, and nearly every "improvement" since then has been driven by the developer's vision rather than the user's need.
Because I can't wait to get fingerprints all over my monitor. . .
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
I'm googling this because maybe my comp-sci history is incomplete, but I don't recall any computers being operational in the 30's:
"First computers that appeared in 30’s and 40’s were not exactly user friendly, and their mammoth size and a retinue of guys in jump suits you needed to operate them were not the only reasons."
An article supposed to present a huge history of GUI development, which has "Windows 8" in the title a few days after it was demoed for the first time? Sounds like the article will be something thrown hastily together to jump on the "hype" bandwagon rather than an insightful article about history...
A good Slashdot article would be the history of the title of this article and who got paid to create and spread it.
No mention of CUA?
"Am I the only person who would actually prefer the Windows 3.1 .. a nice "desktop" that you can organise how you like .. without things popping up at random places on the screen"
A combination of Novell Netware and Xtree done for me or even Midnight Commander
The future of the Microsoft GUI is not with Windows but with SharePoint. SharePoint is now the true Heart of Microsoft while providing the richest developer experience for any sort of cleint GUI development. Please take the time to look at the SharePoint client object model this allows for development in Javascript, Silverlight or .NET for any real world client.
SharePoint, apart from being the best server side backend available - fullstop Sharepoint leader in ECM Magic quadrant - a blog, This is about the only technology stack anyone scared about their career should be considering. And it is also the most sucessfully technology Microsoft has ever invested in, even back in 2008 with the previous version of SharePoint Bill Gates Says fastest growing software in Microsofts History
Its sad to say, most Slashdot readers are NOT aware of this, and still caught up in the old ways of the world
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Maybe it was a month in the calendar invented for the GUI Revolution but the old calendar was put back in effect when Bill Gates took over.
AmigaOS --> MorphOS --> :)
(Who has a copy of that internal M$ document that listed many of the GUI and OS elements they blatantly stole from the Mac and Amiga?)
This story reads like a music review of Lady Gaga by someone who isn't quite sure who Aretha Franklin is, or who maybe never heard of Aretha.
Blah. OTSO:
I had to laugh at Mr. Jobs when he said "All this syncing is driving us crazy" OWTTE... I thought "What syncing?" The only Apple products I own are two Apple IIe computers and a bunch of accessories (which still work fine and are for sale). I do not have a iPhone, nor do I need or want one. I do not have a Mac, because Mac is dead, long live Mac. I do not have an iPod, because I'm a musician and all the music I want to listen to is already in my head, which has an excellent intuitive interface and far, far more storage space than any handheld device. I don't have a wireless network in my home, preferring to leech off my neighbors on the few occasions I unplug my laptop from the wall. My gui-less linux server has been running fine thank you for almost 10 years non-stop. I still use my Amiga 3000. Every day at work I beat my head against the wall of Windows, and its stupidity.
-- eagerly anticipating the return of the mothership.. not the planet I picked.. Guru Meditation #00000004.48454C50
even if it is an article regarding the evolution of the windows gui, truncating the gui history from engelbart and parc to the original mac os, and then switching to the history of the windows gui is pure horseshit.
windows is what it is today due to the development across many windowing and gui efforts.
microsoft has (often blatantly) borrowed gui metaphors from many of its contemporaries thru several iterations of windows including:
motif(cde) - expand/minimize/destroy window
openlook - WIMP metaphor
aqua - transparency effects, alpha blending
compiz - compositing
so on and so forth...
i'm not criticizing microsoft's efforts, but the skew of the article give the impression that windows 8 is where it's to due the sole development efforts microsoft, disregarding other community efforts. the author get's an "F" for failing to perform minor research on wikipedia for a history of gui's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
... but wow, what a fanboyish piece of shit. There is nearly no mention of Apple after its origin.
Leading into Windows 1 (after talking about Xerox, the Lisa, and the first Mac) he says "The era of GUI's was about to start. But apple [sic] was not meant to be the king."
Oh really?
- Vista copied many features straight out of Tiger
- I think we can all agree that WP7 would not look like it does if the iPhone had never been on the scene
- And now, after ten years of making poorly-selling tablets, Apple has shown how it should be done and MS is falling over themselves trying to catch up
I'm not saying Apple has never copied anything either, but once the article hits Windows 1.0, it is all about MS. He goes from Windows 3 to Microsoft Bob, lays down exactly 10 words about Windows 95, then goes straight to XP, Vista, and 7. He dismisses over two decades of Mac OS with the words "In the meantime, Mac OS was undergoing a similar, slow evolution."
He then says "Last couple of years were really eventful. New families of computing devices became wildly popular -- smartphones, netbooks, tablets. Mobile operating systems became almost as complex and capable as desktop ones. Multi touch technologies challenged the age-old interface design, and required new approaches. And now Microsoft tells us the future belongs to tiles." and the rest of the article is about Windows 8 and tiles. REALLY? No mention at all of the iPhone, who was the first to market with multitouch, even if they didn't invent it? No mention of Palm, or WinCE or BeOS or the Amiga or a million other omissions? Come on. If he isn't a shill, he's got a BIG set of blinders on. If you want to see the history of GUIs, go here. They have a ridiculously thorough collection of screenshots.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Sad, a straight shot to Windows 8 - Xerox had the idea, Apple Copied it, MS copied it and then MS developed it into Windows 8 - without copying any thing else... really?
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
"GUI Revolutions: From Windows 8 to Flashing Bulbs" - there, fixed it for y'all :)
FTFA:
Please. Real men still use the command line. That's how I browse Slashdot!
See subject-line... lol! Nothing like telnetting into port 80, or using Lynx, right??
APK
P.S.=> Not ribbing on you, OR trolling you... just trying to stay "inline" w/ YOUR brand of "nerdy/geeky" humor is all!
... apk
The article re-hashes the obvious.
There's a whole history of early graphical user interfaces from the pre-computer and early computer era.
One of the neater ones was the Panama Canal lock control boards, built by General Electric in 1913. This was a long desk with a symbolic model of the locks. The water level in each lock is represented by the tall indicators. The lock gate positions are represented by aluminum pointers. The protective chain lifted into position to protect the first lock gates from a runaway ship was represented by a little metal chain. The locks themselves are represented by a long strip of blue-grey stone. (The first GUI theme!) The valves are controlled by water faucets, and the gates by handles.
All this is interlocked mechanically, so, for example, that the lock gates can't be opened unless the water levels are equal on both sides. The handles will physically not turn. That technology was borrowed from railroad signalling.
Another system of historical interest is General Railway Signal's NX interlocking system., from 1936. This is the very beginning of "user-friendly" GUIs. Previously, interlocked systems in railroad signalling, and the Panama Canal system, just prevented the operator from doing prohibited operations. NX was the first system which showed the operator all the currently valid options, let the user select one, and took care of the details of making it happen. It's well worked out. The operator selects the entrance point where a train is entering the interlocking. The system figures out all the currently valid exit points, taking into account other trains currently present, conflicting routes, etc., and lights up illuminated buttons on the track diagram for each currently allowed exit point. The operator then selects one exit point. The system then moves all the track switches as necessary, waits until they're set and locked in the correct position, then sets the signals along the route to clear. As the train passes through the interlocking, the signals change to "stop" behind it, and the track sections and switches are automatically freed up for other trains. At all times, there's at least one stopping distance of red-signaled track between any two trains, and any switch in a green-signaled section cannot be moved until the train clears it. The New York City subway system still uses this technology, along with mechanical train stop devices at every signal which, if up, will hit an air valve on each subway car and stop the train. There's a simulator if you're interested.
It's worth understanding the big display-board systems of the past. Many of them had better human interfaces than modern systems.
This is a really long, slow, boring ad for microsoft. Xwindows? No? They were critically important. They were the first graphical user interface that connected the gui with the network (as a true client-server application). Not a sniff anywhere. The article misleads us too: the mouse became popular in the mid 80's not in the late 80's. Apple had mouse based products in 84. The Amiga 1000 came with a stock mouse in '85. Thats mid-1980s, not late 1980s. Only Johnny-come-lately: mickeysoft..er microsoft finally, finally came out with anything that needed a mouse in the late 1980s (long after everyone else was in the game). They don't mention the GUIs on OS/2, or any other operating system. They never mention the need for separation between the operating system and the graphical user interface (for a long time, when mickeysoft users whined that they are intertwined, I would ask them to stop an application explorer.exe and see what is left: and they almost never say "its a console" but mistake a console for this reply: "Its a dos window. How did it get there?" Even on a microsoft system the gui (correctly) makes callls to the operating system. But they (mickeysoft) do their level best to hide everything from the user, except for the blue screen of death, viruses, trojans, malware, memory leaks, buffer overflows, and a stable user environment.
Am I the only person who would actually prefer the Windows 3.1 interface to still be around today? No more "close next to maximise", a nice "desktop" that you can organise how you like, and in subfolders, without things popping up at random places on the screen, and no Start Menu / Taskbar / Quick Launch horror, and everything taking precisely as much effort to draw as absolutely necessary (no gradient title bars, horrid skins, etc.).
There was something sweet, simple, endearing and DAMN FAST about the 3.1 shell that I haven't found anywhere since. It flew even on 200MHz machines.
Really, any rich gui that calls itself window manager seems to get 'it'. The GUI's job is to help the user manage their windows they have open. That's it. That's not to say it shouldn't also provide a rich widget set. But as for computer management / software management / resource management that's not the job of the gui. The GUI could be invoked to assist those tools, but a window manager is none of the above. The ones that call themselves as such seem to do the best job of remembering that.
I wrote the comment about "The 30's?" below. I stopped reading there initially. I got as far as:
"Our brain is well suited to work with visual clues, and computers soon learned to use that."
and that was it. I couldn't go any further.
FTA:
Also, the ARM compatibility is a double edge knife â" sure, Windows 8 will run on more machines, including mobile devices. But the applications themselves wonâ(TM)t be interchangeable, software written for ARM wonâ(TM)t work on your PC. Whatâ(TM)s the point in calling it one system, when effectively you will have two systems, each with a separate set of compatible apps?
True on one hand (apps like Office), but not true on another. The statement was made that apps that run entirely on the new desktop with the new Windows 8 facilities can be written entirely in HTML5 and JavaScript. As such, desktop widgets and even more sophisticated apps and games can be written once, and run across both platforms. In fact, I think that's precisly why MS made such a big deal about emphasizing that much of what you're seeing in the new shell is HTML5 and JavaScript.
I'm assuming that .Net is still supported as well, adn even that can compile to IL, which can then be run on each platform, compiling down to native code at either install or run time.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Windows 1 had xclock?
What does Windows 8 have to do with the evolution of the GUI? It looks like an irrelevant, cumbersome side-branch to me.
Windows 8 blowing up the interface of WP7 to the PC follows the logic of apple blowing up the iPhone interface for the iPad.
My feeling is that Microsoft's copy of their own UI might fail fundamentally while Apple's actually worked out.
This difference may come from the different markets Apple and Microsoft are approaching: Apple and the iPad are strongly
geared towards media consumption, while Microsoft Windows 7 is geared towards productivity. Windows 8 mimics WP7
which was made for smartphones that usually are not used for productivity.
Thinking along these lines, Microsoft thus should have adapted interfaces that actually allow to work with data directly to
make the user more data-centric and give him the power to use data beyond silos (such as Outlook, Word, etc).
PTPT tries this and while the UI is certainly totally different from what's been seen before and under strong evolutionary
development, the underlying logic seems to me the actual step to be taken in that direction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znf2KIF_ehE
I purchasd a keyboard with about 10 extra function keys at the top, beyond what you normally see on a standard keyboard, and with those extra keys programmed as I wish, I can do exactly what scrolling through launchers does for me. Hot keys are the way to go.
With the new layouts containing a list of all GUI applications, I have to constantly scroll them in order to locate an application launcher. Not everything I do fits on the "quick launcher" pad. I want to use my data to drive and start the gui application, and not the reverse. In this regard, there is something wrong with both Ubuntu's natty and Gnome3s paradigm. Both interfaces went away from the data to address application launchers. Wow, how painful it is and time wasting to use these two new interfaces.
You could argue that the next version will allow me to change the sequence of the icons(launchers) on the display. Will it allow me to change the type of data shown? If I want my display to be a folder object, containing a series of documents, will I be able to have that option, the option to not show hundreds of application launchers, but only my important folders.
Heresy, we will return our backs to the current approach and look to using the folder as a desktop-- a desktop that contains my data and my application launchers. My ideal GUI display will have object oriented globs, with each glob containing my data and my methods. That is what I would happily accept.
Last, comment. Eventually, ARM, Intel AMD, Motorolla and the world will all be booting a common virtual machine application. That VM will run a global operating system (Perhaps it will be like java) that will allow "write once", "use anywhere" to take place. There will be no need to purchase multiple versions of the same application. I also believe that eventually chipmakers will provide processors capable of having the majority of their instruction sets read-in after booting from a mini-bios. This to my mind would open the door to the virtual machine I envisage.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada