bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) (01/16/89)
I think something people are missing is that these various stenography methods are not nearly accurate, they rely on the secretary going back over them later and making sense out of them. That really is not sufficient for most computer applications. I don't even think one can generally expect one secretary to be able to work from another secretary's stenography notes unless they are very high quality and both are familiar with the subject matter and style involved/expected. Chord keyboards as these reduced keys keyboards are called (because they involve striking multiple keys simultaneously, like chords on a piano) have been around for over a decade. I've heard they're quite useable and I remember seeing one used by an inventory person who would wander around looking at the shelves and pushing things aside with one hand while entering counts with the other without looking down. I think these, like Dvorak, have the same problem, simple lack of universality (better put, a chicken and egg problem, until they're widely used they'll never be widely used.) Perhaps the problem is they're solving a problem the majority of people don't particularly feel needs solving? That's a common effect in the computer industry, wonderfully elegant solutions to non-problems. It's one of the trickiest things in this industry to predict the success of and one has to learn how to become aware of this possibility through painful experience. Some examples, other than Dvorak keyboards: 1. Bubble memories. 2. Many programming languages (particularly "systems" programming languages and attempts to pre-process and structure Fortran, I think I've seen a dozen good tries at the latter) 3. "High-level" programming language text editors (ie. editors that would detect certain bugs as they were typed in.) 4. Touch-screens (although they have some following in point-of-sale applications when they first arrived they were heralded as being the solution to human interface design and would be ubiquitous.) 5. Large removeable winchesters (making a comeback as data modules but after the DEC RA60 seemed to languish as a product for several years, maybe just too big and heavy at the time.) Actually, that's an interesting topic if we can get over the red-faced memories, what technological innovations in the recent past did *YOU* think were going to be the end-all/be-all and just sort of fizzled? Lisp Machines? Program Verification? Color text terminals? Page-sized text terminals? ??? -Barry Shein, ||Encore||
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (01/17/89)
In article <8901160212.AA29231@pinocchio.UUCP>, bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: > Actually, that's an interesting topic if we can get over the red-faced > memories, what technological innovations in the recent past did *YOU* > think were going to be the end-all/be-all and just sort of fizzled? UNIX. For the past 6 years or so, I've been telling myself a personal UNIX system was just around the corner. Early attempts like the HP Integral flopped, but I could rationalise it with "well, that's HP. They're always too expensive.", or "AT&T couldn't market their way out of a paper bag." I am still mystified as to why people think MS-DOS is just fine. Today's MS-DOS is a larger program than the old PDP-11 V7 UNIX... and it's a less desirable working environment. Sure, V7 isn't up to the quality of SV or BSD, but it's smaller, faster, and more powerful than what most PC owners put up with. There's no technical reason why you shouldn't be able to get a $2,000 user-friendly UNIX box (like the HP-Integral, but without HP prices). And if something so basic can go awry, what good our plans? -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. `-_-' Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.uu.net. 'U` Opinions may not represent the policies of FICC or the Xenix Support group.
gwills@maths.tcd.ie (Graham Wills) (01/17/89)
In article <8901160212.AA29231@pinocchio.UUCP> bzs@pinocchio.encore.com (Barry Shein) writes: > >Perhaps the problem is they're solving a problem the majority >of people don't particularly feel needs solving? > >That's a common effect in the computer industry, wonderfully elegant >solutions to non-problems. It's one of the trickiest things in this >industry to predict the success of and one has to learn how to become >aware of this possibility through painful experience. > >Some examples, other than Dvorak keyboards: > > [ ... some examples ... ] > >3. "High-level" programming language >text editors (ie. editors that would detect certain bugs as they were >typed in.) > Funnily enough, one of the most popular, and possibly THE most popular pascal programming environment for the Macintosh is Lightspeed Pascal. This incorparates an editor of the type mentioned above; it will automatically indent when necessary, put a line feed after a semi- colon, flag syntax errors, highlight keywords in bold. None of these features can be turned off (some people reading this will immediatly dislike it), and it is still the most friendly pascal editor I know. Now, due to the fact I write big ( > 1/4 MByte source code ) programs I use a different package and sigh whistfully when after 2 mins compile time I get a "Excuse me - you shoulda puta semi-c in here" error. Please do not start a dsicussion of which editors people use ... there's been a long-running one in comp.sys.mac and *boy* was it boring This is just to point out that, given the right machine, intelligent editors are *nice*. (please, someone, a C-editor like this ...) Graham Wills | "I climb up to a mountain ... TCD, Ireland. | I chop it down with the ledge of my hand."
hjespers@attcan.UUCP (Hans Jespersen) (01/19/89)
In article <2772@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >or "AT&T couldn't market their way out of a paper bag." Just curious, how DOES one market oneself out of a paper paper bag ? In fact, what would one be doing in a paper bag in the first place ? :-) >I am still mystified as to why people think MS-DOS is just fine. Today's >MS-DOS is a larger program than the old PDP-11 V7 UNIX... and it's a less >desirable working environment. Sure, V7 isn't up to the quality of SV or >BSD, but it's smaller, faster, and more powerful than what most PC owners >put up with. Realistically, how many MS-DOS users have even heard of V7 (let alone UNIX) ? You can't miss something that you have never heard of. Perhaps the hardest pill to swallow is that MS-DOS _is_ just fine for many applications. How many users would really appreciate the benifits that UNIX provides ? Basically what I'm trying to say is "if it 'aint broke , don't fix it". When developers start producing applications that properly utilize UNIX (ie. communications) _then_ and only then , will there will be a reason to buy it. Of course, the opinions expressed above are my own and do not respresent those of my employer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hans Jespersen UUCP: uunet!attcan!hjespers AT&T Canada Inc. or ..!attcan!nebulus!arakis!hans Toronto, Ontario
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (01/24/89)
In article <3797@attcan.UUCP>, hjespers@attcan.UUCP (Hans Jespersen) writes about MS-DOS: > Perhaps the > hardest pill to swallow is that MS-DOS _is_ just fine for many applications. > How many users would really appreciate the benifits that UNIX provides ? Just about any MS-DOS user who gets into the incredible TSR shuffle, has to hook into a network,and so on. Anything that requires asynchronous processing on MS/DOS is guaranteed to crash you far too often. And the Mac is just as bad. Power users, in short. The guys who tend to be the biggest MS-DOS apologists. > Basically what I'm trying to say is "if it 'aint broke , don't fix it". It is broke. What order *do* you load Sidekick and DoubleDOS? I never quite decided which set of bugs I was happiest with. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. `-_-' Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.uu.net. 'U` Opinions may not represent the policies of FICC or the Xenix Support group.
doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) (01/27/89)
PdS> PdS>It is broke. What order *do* you load Sidekick and DoubleDOS? PdS>I never quite PdS>decided which set of bugs I was happiest with. Cripes Peter!!! You do NOT run Sidekick with DoubleDOS unless you are a glutton for punishment! Leastways I could never get the two to co-exist peacefully. They fight over interrupts, actually. Which is one of the many reasons why, after taking DOS to places DOS has never been taken before (yes, we run uucp sites under DOS), I have this copy of Xenix sitting on my desk waiting for Monday morning . . . (pray for me, I'll need it) =Doug -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fido 1:221/162 -- 1:221/0 280 Phillip St., UUCP: !watmath!isishq!doug Unit B-4-11 DAS: [DEZCDT]doug Waterloo, Ontario Bitnet: fido@water Canada N2L 3X1 Internet: doug@isishq.math.fidonet.org (519) 746-5022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------