🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep1.090148.4206@msc.cornell.edu> maynard@groo.msc.cornell.edu (Maynard J. Handley) writes:
> thinking about how to copy the Mac. Apple is not completely satified with
> the Mac interface- it changed a bit it System 7, and doubtless it will
> change fairly substantially as Apple feels they can get away with
> abandoning slower and less powerful platforms. 

Fixing the Mac user interface does NOT require abandoning older platforms.
Pop-up menus don't require any more CPU power than pull-down ones. Iconifying
running programs doesn't take any more CPU power than hiding them in the title
bar. Proportional scrollbars don't take any more CPU power than fixed-size
ones.

The GUI changes in System 7 are, so far as I can tell, entirely chrome.

> I see Win3 as having taken essentially no time to bother with coming up
> with something better than a Mac.

Give me a break. The Windows GUI is significantly better than the Mac's. You
can even use it productively and conveniently without a mouse. the Windows
programming interface seems a pretty close copy of the Macs, with all the awful
programming and performance problems that entails, but the GUI is quite
different and MUCH better.

> Likewise for OpenLook and Motif.

OpenLook and Motif are even more different. Frankly, Motif is just more of
the traditional X "well, it works so we'll do it this way" design. Open
Look has at least *been* designed, though I could do without the fancy
details like rounded buttons and elevator cables on scrollbars. That's
just chrome, but what's *under* the chrome is nice.

All of these are desktops, but that doesn't mean they're Mac clones. Remember:
the Mac wasn't the first desktop. Not even the first one from Apple.
-- 
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