[inforoots] GUIs and glass teletypes

[Ed Thelen]

I'm CCing the author of the GUI piece  :-))
   I think you have an interesting point.
And of course I have to throw in a comment, or three !

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stan Sieler" <sieler at allegro.com>
To: <inforoots at computerhistory.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 3:23 PM
Subject: [inforoots] GUIs and glass teletypes


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> There'a an article about the history of GUIs in Ars Technica, at
> http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/gui.ars
>
> However, examining the accompanying graph at
> http://media.arstechnica.com/images/gui/guitimeline.jpg
> made me wonder ... what about glass teletypes?
>
> It seems to me that there's a critical piece missing from most GUI
> histories: the impact of CRTs, as in "glass teletypes", on the development
> of the GUI (including the impact of UCSD Pascal's user interface).
>
> I.e., moving to a CRT terminal (not graphics yet) led to a
> conceptual breakthrough:
>
>    text / information doesn't have to be presented in a linear fashion,
>    or in a manner where it scrolls out of sight.
>
> (Many CRT teminals had cursor positioning that allowed information to
> be placed at arbitrary locations, and some had the ability to say
> "don't scroll this away")
>
> Did this have an affect on GUI development?
>
> Aside from Englebart and his radar background, I wonder if most GUI
> developers were first exposed to "glass teletypes"?

What an interesting point !!

Indeed, that presentation of the history of GUI has a shocking omission

OK - being dramatic - reading too many newspapers
   and watching too much TV
 - actually "unimaginably shocking"    ;-))

Indeed, the
  - Friden Flexowriters of the late 1950s

  - the console typewriters of the early 1960s

  - the Teletype Corporation ASR Mod 33s, 35s, 37s at say 110 baud
      with Dartmouth BASIC

  - Seymour Cray's twin tubes on the CDC 6x00 line of the 1960s
       - no mouse, and I can't remember the commands
          to select tube and interactions

  - the character based alphanumerics and shapes
          to make boxes of the Commodore Pet and Apple II
          of the mid 1970s - with cursor positioning :-))

  - and the lovely DEC VT-100  :-))

immediately preceded the current GUI craze.

--- start of tirade ---

The utility and simplicity of the above made many of us
ask if the horrible software complexity of any GUI is worth it.

After struggling with
   - Windows GUI
   - Visual Basic GUI
heck any GUI -

For 90 % of what I want to do, the current GUI stuff
is way over-kill - and I can ignore much of the other 10%

I long for the simplicity of the Goode Olde Daze
  when you could teach "anyone" to make an interactive BASIC
  "game" in an afternoon.
  - and I could remember the verbs and parameters
    without constant refreshing from 2 or 3 thick books.

I think the GUI has killed off the casual programmer,
   you have to be full time to learn/remember the GUI stuff !!
I'm retired, and want to "do it" for fun - not pain -
   and let's not get started on C++


Remember  BASIC with an ASR 33 ??

  INPUT "What file do you want to open ? "; F$

did it - no fuss about box placement, box color, background color,
font, blocking/non-blocking, and variables with out end.

What do ya mean I gotta paint the whole damn screen all over
again if the OS tells me to ??   I can barely remember
the last word I wrote the screen!!

I'm playing with PowerBasic - Windows,
the book might as well be an unabridged dictionary  :-((

And ya didn't have to retype the request if the OS told you to
   just 'cause the idiot user  moved my window -
Tell 'em once is enough !!   There - that fixed the problem  ;-))

The glories of GUI ?? Rubbish !!   Back to Babbage !!

Talk about software bloat!!  GUI bloat!!
  Better get that optional gigabyte memory so ya can open a few more
windows.
We bought a Commodore PET with the *BIG* memory, 8 K bytes :-))

--- end of tirade ---

Cheers
  Ed Thelen
>
> Stan
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