Tog and the interface (was: ID computer)

From: Alan Pearson <Alan.Pearson_at_cramersystems.com>
Date: Thu May 24 04:51:48 2001

> If you ever worked on a Xerox, where you had the copy/move/prop/...
special
> keys on the left hand side of your keyboard you'd know how easy handling
can
> be ... unlike todays interface, where you use the mouse for several thing,
> here the little critter was only a pointing device, while you selected
most
> functions via keys (and your left hand).

Heck yes, it's *way* better that what we've ended up with! I reckon things
started going downhill when somebody dreamt up the menu bar - the original
Star interface had a button bar across the top of the window where you could
get at the few functions you couldn't provide by the left-hand keypad. None
of this "hunt the menu option" rubbish you have to do now.

IMHO the Star interface was, and still is, about as good as you're likely
to get with the windows-icons-mouse paradigm. Look at the fuss Microsoft
made about making the desktop more "document-centric" - that's what the Star

desktop was all about in the first place! Something was lost when Apple
implemented their own version of it, which Microsoft then copied.

Al
Received on Thu May 24 2001 - 04:51:48 BST