[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

Tue Sep 9 12:30:52 PDT 2014

Hello Luisa:

This is a great topic, but also a big one! The short answer is that yes, you've put your finger on a BIG tension between the design philosophy of Doug Engelbart (as well as Ted Nelson) and the later Graphical User Interface-based approach developed at Xerox PARC and adapted by Apple. 

Engelbart's criticism of the GUI, one-button mouse etc. is that they were like a tricycle; easy to learn, but you could never go as fast as on a bicycle. NLS and the input devices for it had a learning curve, like a bicycle does, but once you were good you could fly through information space almost as fast as actors do when they use computers in movies. 

The fact that users have learned to write or type again for mobile phones (nine-key number pad for texting, thumb keyboard later on) and the Palm Pilot (Graffitti alphabet) calls into question the idea that people won't learn anything hard in terms of human-computer interfaces; you just need the right motivation. But that doesn't mean that when the Mac and the GUI made creaky, command-intensive personal computers easier to use for ordinary people, that this wasn't a really BIG deal at the time. 

Apple's design philosophy is partly about beauty and elegance, and certainly some people would argue that they have favored form over function. But since a lot of Apple's competitors over the year's haven't offered standout form or function, it's a fairly hypothetical debate. Nothing much like Engelbart's NLS has ever reached the mass market, and if it suddenly did today it would need to overcome 30 years of habit. 

Incidentally, Doug did have quite a bit of contact with Apple in the '80s and there were people there who had huge respect for him. But there weren't many direct results. 

If you want to learn more about Engelbart and the mouse, there are a lot of resources I can point you to. The bulk of the archives of his group at SRI as well as his personal papers are with us or at Stanford Libraries, and we collaborate extensively. 

We did an event in Doug's memory last December, here's a writeup and several links: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/chm-fellow-douglas-c-engelbart/

Here are some searches related to Engelbart and the mouse within our "Revolution" exhibition: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/search?q=engelbart, http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/search?q=mouse&x=0&y=0, 

We also have extensive video footage of Doug in our collection, as well as a "show and tell" interview with Bill English, co-inventor of the mouse 

If you're telling the story of the mouse the 20 years between its invention in 1964 and its popularization with the Mac is heavily focused around Xerox PARC; I can also point you to resources for that part of the history. You might also want to mention the Logitech story (they funded Engelbart's offices out of gratitude, starting in the '80s). 

Best, Marc

Marc Weber  |   marc at webhistory.org  |   +1 415 282 6868 
Internet History Program Founder and Curator, Computer History Museum            
1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043 computerhistory.org/nethistory
Co-founder, Web History Center and Project, webhistory.org 

On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Luisa Emmi Beck wrote:

> 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  "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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Marc Weber  |   marc at webhistory.org  |   +1 415 282 6868 
Internet History Program Founder and Curator, Computer History Museum            
1401 N Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View CA 94043 computerhistory.org/nethistory
Co-founder, Web History Center and Project, webhistory.org 

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