[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

[Luisa Emmi Beck]

Thank you everyone! On a related note- I'm wondering whether anyone on the
list has thoughts about the angle of my story (whether it is historically
accurate and whether the design tension I'm raising is relevant and
interesting to you):

I'm fascinated by Doug Engelbart's early three-button mouse and chorded
keyset system. Some people I've talked to say that Doug used it for almost
all tasks except for when he was typing long texts- which is when he
switched to using the QWERTY keyboard). When Steve Jobs commissioned IDEO
to design the mouse for Lisa, he told David Kelley to only include one
button. And the keyset was entirely lost.

The reason most people mention is that the keyset and three-button mouse
were difficult to learn. They required recall whereas the simple on-button
mouse relied on drop-down menus and that the user recognize the relevant
icons. But people who saw Doug use the keyset and three-button mouse said
that he was much more efficient with it than anyone who relied solely on
the one-button mouse and keyboard. Doug taught everyone (even secretaries,
his children, etc. how to use the keyset and three-button mouse).
Generally, when designing systems, Doug seems to be more focused on making
devices that are *learnable* and high performance as opposed to simple
(which is what Steve Jobs focused on to make Lisa with it's one-button
mouse marketable).

So my key questions are:

   - What happened to the chorded keyset? Why didn't it become popular?
   - What are the key differences between Doug Engelbart's and Steve Jobs
   design philosophy?
   - What (if anything) do we lose by designing systems that focus so much
   on *simplicity *and *usability* instead of *learnability*
   - What might Doug think of the Apple products that so many of us use
   today? Did Apple trade high-performance systems for the sake of "usability"?
   - Apple products and Apple's design philosophy are everywhere today. Is
   there anything we’ve lost with the Apple design philosophy? Or that Doug
   might think we’ve lost?

I would be curious to hear your thoughts about any of these points.
Thanks!
Luisa


On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 9:32 AM, Paul McJones <paul at mcjones.org> wrote:

> Here’s a 15 minute promotional/instructional video from 1983, of Apple’s
> Lisa computer that was soon eclipsed by the Macintosh:
>
> http://www.guidebookgallery.org/videos/lisa1983
>
> By the way, this website, GUIdebook <http://www.guidebookgallery.org/>
> "a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User
> Interfaces, as well as various materials related to them”, is filled with
> interesting artifacts, including a transcript of the previously-discussed
> 1984 Macintosh Guided Tour, a similar one for Lisa, and much, much more.
>  The website was created by Marcin Wichary.
>
> On Sep 8, 2014, at 8:28 PM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi SIGCIS members,
>
> I'm working on a radio story about the history of personal computing.
>
> I would like to find instructional videos for the first Macintosh or other
> personal computers. The goal is to give listeners a sense for how new and
> incredible the idea of personal computing was in the 1970s. ​Does anyone on
> this list know of where I could find such videos? I haven't been able to
> find anything on YouTube but I'm hoping to be able to track down a few
> instructional videos (or at least the audio portion of the videos).
>
> Thanks!
> Luisa
>
> (510) 856.7475
> http://luisabeck.com/
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-- 
Luisa

(510) 856.7475
http://luisabeck.com/
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