🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1489@umbc3.UMD.EDU> cs374326@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Peter Johansson) writes:
>We are running a network
>of roughly one dozen Mac ][s, connected to one mac ][ with a HD as a file
>server and print spooler.  The first big problem was that the system software
>(6.0) would crash several times daily. ... 
>......., I personally found I was spending
>*more* time trying to figure things out than I was actually doing work.

Stop and think now about how much -more- work was done on the Mac by the 
people that don't understand operating systems than they would have done
at the unix prompt.

>How much research has actually gone into discovering what Joe Schmoe,
>small and medium sized business owner, wants on his desk?  Does he want
>a gas-plasma-wall-hanging-display unit and an infra-red-input-device?

I have not done any research on the subject, but I sure would like to 
see a design system that allows me to display a full schematic page 
next to the simulation traces for that page. This would require a very 
large display. I vote yes. As for small businessmen, if the system also
includes a scanning and retrieval method, I'm sure they would get into
the same situation trying to compare two documents in windows too small
to show the documents full size.

>Addmitedly, this *is* comp.sys.next, and there aren't very many end users
>(of the NeXT machine) and in the near future I see no coporate use of the
>machine planed.  .......
>I'm also curious just what percentage of the end-user computing market
>the graphical interface has captured, and what their opinions of it are.

I think the reason that the accountants and lawyers and mail order entry
people don't use graphical interfaces is primarily cost. There is a lot 
of money to be made if you can design a good sized graphics display and 
an interface to it that allows large numbers of graphics terminals to run
on one central box. The programmer will always deliver his application 
in the least expensive manner. When the application becomes too complex
to deliver on a simple text screen, it is no longer cost effective to 
do so. 

If users have never seen a graphical interface or a pointer, they will
be happy to use what is available. The current problem with most graphics
interfaces stems from the fact that they are designed to work on 
workstations. Unless a network of workstations is less expensive
than a central computer and a less capable terminal, there is no market
for the graphics. Note that expensive here refers to total cost vs.
total productivity.

The unsophistocated user wants the graphics to be transparent and reliable.
He or she wants applications that help him do his job in a cost 
effective manner. Our job as hardware and software engineers is to 
figure out how to take the things that nature gives us and help these 
people do their jobs. Sometimes that is fun, and sometimes it isn't.

-- 
Mark Clauss  Hardware Engineering, NCR Wichita <Mark.Clauss@Wichita.NCR.COM>
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-- 
Mark Clauss  Hardware Engineering, NCR Wichita <Mark.Clauss@Wichita.NCR.COM>
 NCR:654-8120                              <{uunet}!ncrlnk!
(316)636-8120         <{ece-csc,hubcap,gould,rtech}!ncrcae!ncrwic!mark.clauss>
           <{sdcsvax,cbatt,dcdwest,nosc.ARPA,ihnp4}!ncr-sd!