🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <564@apexepa.UUCP> peter@apexepa.UUCP (Peter Palij) writes:

>I think 25-Mar-89 _The Economist_ put it best:

(gads, I like the Economist. Having to read a British magazine to get decent
American news is a sad commentary on us, though...)

I'm just tossing a monkey wrench into this, just for the hell of it. Please
consider my tongue stuck slightly into my cheek.

>Imagine what might have happened had an early carmaker
>managed to patent the steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals.

>[What's more basic "look and feel" than the above mentioned components
>of an automobile?]

Actually, some early cars used a rudder-like steering mechanism. The
steering wheel has become standardized, but it certainly isn't unique -- or
necessarily optimum. I keep seeing futuristic prototypes and many have
alternative steering mechanisms.

The same can be said for both accelarators and brake pedals. I know of cars
that have neither -- look at the mechanisms in the vans of any paraplegic.
Again, they're standards -- not necessarily optimum standards, but standards.

You can actually look at this two ways. You can say that Apple is keeping
people from using the best technology. You can also say that everyone else
is trying to jump on the Apple bandwagon instead of going and inventing the
next quantum leap in the interfaces. 

Imagine, if you will, that Apple had decided not to develop the Mac, but
instead standardized with the rest of the world with MS-DOS. Where would the
computer world be today? Isn't there a good argument for making people take
new approaches? Always re-implementing the past doesn't improve the state of
technology, it stagnates it.

A steering wheel isn't the optimal form of direction change technology. What
is? I don't know. But since the auto industry has decided that a steering
wheel is 'good enough' it'll be exceptionally hard to make the leap to the
next, really better form of the technology.

What if all computer manufacturers decided that the MacOS was 'good
enough' -- it's good. But wouldn't you like to see what's next? If you take
away the rights to protect your R&D investment, you take away any reason to
invest. After that, all you get is reimplimentations of the same thing.
Infinite varieties of steering wheels.

(disclaimer time: I don't believe a word I say....)



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