Iconitis

[Stephen Uitti]

In article <4855 at bunker.UUCP> garys at bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes:
>In article <28679 at apple.Apple.COM> austing at Apple.COM (Glenn L. Austin) writes:
>>In article <7898 at pyr.gatech.EDU> is813cs at pyr.UUCP (Cris Simpson) writes:
>>>Anytime I have had to use a Mac, I always asked,
>>>"Why is it so slow?."
>>
>>Compare the time it takes to type "DIR<return>" with double-click.  If you
>>notice, it takes a lot less time to double-click than it does to type the
>>command.
>
>Not a fair comparison.  Typing DIR corresponds to moving the mouse until
>it points to (for example) the icon of the disk whose contents you want
>to examine.

"DIR" is a poor example.  The time it takes to learn a complicated
application dominates these days.

At home i have a Mac II & a PC XT clone (7.15 MHz).  They were
purchased at the same time (within a week of each other).  The
clone was about half the cost.  The clone has 50 Meg of disk, the
Mac has 40 Meg (they both eat disk).  The clone has 640K RAM
(plenty), the Mac has 2 Meg (not enough).  They have about the
same response.  (A Mac Se is slightly slower than the clone - but
"good enough").

Take a typical program for the clone: pkarc.  It has more than
a dozen options, no real defaults.  I keep a crib sheet under my
clone's keyboard "pkarc -nct a dsk:archive files...", and
"pkxarc -x dsk:archive", just to give me a hint on how to do these
things.  Maybe i'm slow, but it took me most of an hour to figure
out how it worked.  The equivelent on the Mac, "stuffit", never
gave me any trouble.  OK, so it doesn't work the way *I* would
have designed it.  It still uses the Mac interface, i didn't have
to read the manual, i don't have to keep crib notes.

Now take a complicated program.  I have "canvas" for the Mac.  It
does object & bit oriented color graphics.  I've used it for
postprocessing scanned in images.  I've used it as a drafting
table (it supports arrows, measurements, etc).  I've used it for
graphics file conversion.  It has a manual, and you need it.  It
has nearly infinite features.  Sure, some of the icons don't mean
anything until you read the manual.  But they do mean something
once you get the idea.  No crib notes.  It uses the Mac
interface, so i can just play with it.  It has help online.  It
comes with a tutorial and a reference guide (i wish more software
came with both).

I don't have anything nearly as complicated on the clone.  The
reason is that i simply don't have the time.  It would take
months rather than just days to learn something like that.  My
crib notes would be the size of most manuals.  Commercial
programs for clones are getting better.  Turbo C uses menus.
Interstel's EMPIRE (great game) uses menus and/or a mouse.
Guess what?  When you do that, the user interface slows down!
The CPU needs to really kick in order to give you any kind of
response.  It takes all sorts of CPU to move the bits around the
screen.

At work, i use a Compaq 386/25, running UNIX.  Incredible.
Easily 3-4 times the speed of the old '780, and (often) all to
myself.  Guess what happens when we run X windows with a large
bitmaped screen?  It slows down to what i'm used to, but says
"yes master", lots more often.  This is a good deal.  UNIX has
one of the most cryptic command line interfaces ever invented.
Powerful, yes.  Who would have voluntarily come up with hundreds
of two character command names.  Almost no commands have options
of more than one character.  Many commands use both upper and
lower case for options because they have too many.  Hardly any
commands with built in help.  AT&T actually removed the manual
pages from the distribution (though they may be coming back)!!!?!
I'm convinced it was designed by people who could type maybe five
words per minute, but who could play "concentration" in their
sleep, and never make a mistake.

Large bitmapped screens, X windows, mice (with too many buttons -
come on guys: there are no lables on mouse buttons!) and real
window managers could turn UNIX into a powerful AND user friendly
system.  Maybe even better than a Mac.  Of course, vendors will
have to realize that with $10k machines, their software will have
to be cheaper...  I'm not holding my breath.

Stephen.