Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> (02/08/90)
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1019. Wednesday, 7 Feb 1990. (1) Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 22:11:10 EDT (48 lines) From: FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB.BITNET Subject: The ideal workstation and the quality of life with computers (2) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 12:16:36 EST (37 lines) From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 3.1004 ideal workstation! (144) (1) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 22:11:10 EDT From: FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB.BITNET Subject: The ideal workstation and the quality of life with computers As soon as I learned in the early Eighties that one did not have to hit a carriage-return with a word-processor, I was hooked on computers for the humanities. That and automatically-reformatted paragraphs and pushing footnotes to the end of the documents--all those goodies were more than marvellous. Of course that initial intoxication was matched by having to edit batch files in EDLIN and other nasty and impossible jobs the computer and its programmers made me do. The demonstrable increase in productivity was matched by lower quality of life, which is the modern trade-off all over. The modern automobile is a marvellous machine, a little island of mechanical marvels that eases our aching back and plays us easing Bach, but what does that all mean if we are caught in gridlock? The ideal workstation is a great tool for productivity and efficiency in the hands of people who see its potential for releasing creativity--no matter what their field. One thing that lowers the quality of life around the use of the computer are the Babelings over which system looks best. IBM is tainted by its association with arrogant Big Brother Business, the Mac is an overpriced and undersupported toy used by illiterate picture people, the NeXT is yet another toy of Stephen Jobs that is overhyped and untested, the Amiga is out of the mainstream and incompatible, the Sun is for engineers who can afford it. Besides, our deans won't let us have anything more expensive than the lowest of the clones. The marvellous machines that we so fell in love with are bewitched by software that never quite works the way it is supposed to, never quite does what it is hyped to do. And if the software don't get you, the virus will, so we live in a paranoid and suspicious world that can't trust the software people to give us something that really does do what it says it will do and we can't even trade disks freely for fear of contamination. Despite the lowered quality of life caused by our loss of faith in the machine, we academic computer people are now expected to live a more-efficient, more productive, more businesslike life, now that we have access to machines. We are expected to take even more of our work home with us. We are expected to construct wonderful teaching programs with the computer, instruct students on how to become as good writers and productive scholars as we are. We can't see ourselves living without the computers but we are going mad with having to live with their complexity and the complexity of life caused by humanity's often evil interaction with computers, from over-hyped advertising to underdone programming. No wonder we get discouraged sometimes. (2) --------------------------------------------------------------48---- Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 12:16:36 EST From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 3.1004 ideal workstation! (144) For me, the single most important function of a workstation (right now) is its multi-tasking abilities. Unless yu've done it, you cannot believe how convenient it is to open up a window and log on to an on-line catalogue, search for a bibliographical reference and (1) paste it into a bibliography or (2) into a mail window to request the library delivery service to bring you the item in question. This is on a Sun 3/50, by the way. I think that the model we will be looking at our LAN's with gigabyte (or more) file servers and workstations. That way you minimize the problems of system administration, backups, etc., while still maintaining response time and local user control. To illustrate the problems with systems that do not support multi-tasking: I currently have a large data base system on a PS/2 model 70 running DOS 4.0. In order to keep a set of notes to myself on problems to be solved, either with the system itself or with the data, I have to shut down the data base and open up the word processor, which means (a) that unless the problem is "important" enough, I don't do it, or (b) I waste a certain amount of time--and over a long enough period that time adds up. Thus I see the humanist workstation, right now, primarily as a productivity enhancer. As they become more prevalent, however, they will also allow us to do things which we would never have considered with lesser systems--like hypertext CAI or critical editions. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley more of our work home with us. We are expected to construct wonderful teaching programs with the computer, instruct students on how to become as good writers and productive scholars as we are. We can't see ourselves living without the computers but we are going mad with having to live with their complexity and the complexity of life caused by humanity's often evil interaction with computers, from over-hyped advertising to underdone programming. No wonder we get discouraged sometimes. (2) --------------------------------------------------------------48---- Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 12:16:36 EST From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 3.1004 ideal workstation! (144) For me, the single most important function of a workstation (right now) is its multi-tasking abilities. Unless yu've done it, you cannot believe how convenient it is to open up a window and log on to an on-line catalogue, search for a bibliographical reference and (1) paste it into a bibliography or (2) into a mail window to request the library delivery service to bring you the item in question. This is on a Sun 3/50, by the way. I think that the model we will be looking at our LAN's with gigabyte (or more) file servers and workstations. That way you minimize the problems of system administration, backups, etc., while still maintaining response time and local user control. To illustrate the problems with systems that do not support multi-tasking: I currently have a large data base system on a PS/2 model 70 running DOS 4.0. In order to keep a set of notes to myself on problems to be solved, either with the Received: from vm.epas.utoronto.ca by VM.UTCS.UTORONTO.CA (Mailer R2.05) with BSMTP id 2382; Wed, 07 Feb 90 21:01:56 EST Received: by UTOREPAS (Mailer R2.03A) id 7199; Wed, 07 Feb 90 21:00:54 EST Date: Wed, 07 Feb 90 21:00:21 EST From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: 3.1019 ideal workstation, cont. (105) To: Humanist Discussion Group <Humanist@utoronto> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1019. Wednesday, 7 Feb 1990. (1) Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 22:11:10 EDT (48 lines) From: FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB.BITNET Subject: The ideal workstation and the quality of life with computers (2) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 12:16:36 EST (37 lines) From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 3.1004 ideal workstation! (144) (1) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 06 Feb 90 22:11:10 EDT From: FLANNAGA@OUACCVMB.BITNET Subject: The ideal workstation and the quality of life with computers As soon as I learned in the early Eighties that one did not have to hit a carriage-return with a word-processor, I was hooked on computers for the humanities. That and automatically-reformatted paragraphs and pushing footnotes to the end of the documents--all those goodies were more than marvellous. Of course that initial intoxication was matched by having to edit batch files in EDLIN and other nasty and impossible jobs the computer and its programmers made me do. The demonstrable increase in productivity was matched by lower quality of life, which is the modern trade-off all over. The modern automobile is a marvellous machine, a little island of mechanical marvels that eases our aching back and plays us easing Bach, but what does that all mean if we are caught in gridlock? The ideal workstation is a great tool for productivity and efficiency in the hands of people who see its potential for releasing creativity--no matter what their field. One thing that lowers the quality of life around the use of the computer are the Babelings over which system looks best. IBM is tainted by its association with arrogant Big Brother Business, the Mac is an overpriced and undersupported toy used by illiterate picture people, the NeXT is yet another toy of Stephen Jobs that is overhyped and untested, the Amiga is out of the mainstream and incompatible, the Sun is for engineers who can afford it. Besides, our deans won't let us have anything more expensive than the lowest of the clones. The marvellous machines that we so fell in love with are bewitched by software that never quite works the way it is supposed to, never quite does what it is hyped to do. And if the software don't get you, the virus will, so we live in a paranoid and suspicious world that can't trust the software people to give us something that really does do what it says it will do and we can't even trade disks freely for fear of contamination. Despite the lowered quality of life caused by our loss of faith in the machine, we academic computer people are now expected to live a more-efficient, more productive, more businesslike life, now that we have access to machines. We are expected to take even more of our work home with us. We are expected to construct wonderful teaching programs with the computer, instruct students on how to become as good writers and productive scholars as we are. We can't see ourselves living without the computers but we are going mad with having to live with their complexity and the complexity of life caused by humanity's often evil interaction with computers, from over-hyped advertising to underdone programming. No wonder we get discouraged sometimes. (2) --------------------------------------------------------------48---- Date: Tue, 6 Feb 90 12:16:36 EST From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber) Subject: Re: 3.1004 ideal workstation! (144) For me, the single most important function of a workstation (right now) is its multi-tasking abilities. Unless yu've done it, you cannot believe how convenient it is to open up a window and log on to an on-line catalogue, search for a bibliographical reference and (1) paste it into a bibliography or (2) into a mail window to request the library delivery service to bring you the item in question. This is on a Sun 3/50, by the way. I think that the model we will be looking at our LAN's with gigabyte (or more) file servers and workstations. That way you minimize the problems of system administration, backups, etc., while still maintaining response time and local user control. To illustrate the problems with systems that do not support multi-tasking: I currently have a large data base system on a PS/2 model 70 running DOS 4.0. In order to keep a set of notes to myself on problems to be solved, either with the system itself or with the data, I have to shut down the data base and open up the word processor, which means (a) that unless the problem is "important" enough, I don't do it, or (b) I waste a certain amount of time--and over a long enough period that time adds up. Thus I see the humanist workstation, right now, primarily as a productivity enhancer. As they become more prevalent, however, they will also allow us to do things which we would never have considered with lesser systems--like hypertext CAI or critical editions. Charles Faulhaber UC Berkeley