[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

Tue Sep 9 13:38:44 PDT 2014

Luisa,

The audio tapes that played in sync with the guided tour disk on the Mac 128K would quite an impression on someone in 1984.  There are some u-tube videos of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pwammW5syw

regards,
Mike Willegal

> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 10:28 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/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?
> Date: September 9, 2014 at 3:59:04 PM EDT
> To: Paul McJones <paul at mcjones.org>
> Cc: "members at sigcis.org" <members at sigcis.org>
> 
> 
> Thanks Paul! Do you happen to have Donald Wallace's contact information? It would be neat to ask him more about using the keyset (why he decided to learn and use it, etc. ). Thanks!
> 
> On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Paul McJones <paul at mcjones.org> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 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. .... 
>> 
>> So my key questions are: 
>> What happened to the chorded keyset? Why didn't it become popular? 
> I can give first-hand information from Xerox from late 1976 through early 1981: I worked at Xerox SDD organization in Palo Alto, designing the Pilot operating system that was part of the Xerox Star 8010 office system. We used Altos for software development (until we’d bootstrapped to the new Star hardware), for document editing, and for electronic mail(!).  During that time, I knew of only one or two people at SDD or down the street at PARC who used the five-finger keyset. Learning the mouse was fast and intuitive, but learning the keyset took more time than most people were willing to devote to it. I’m pretty sure most Altos still came with a keyset, but they were unused. The one person I remember using the keyset was Donald “Smokey” Wallace, who came to Xerox from Eglebart’s NLS project.  He used an editor named UGH that ran on the Alto and mimicked the functionality of NLS. The rest of us enjoyed his demonstrations, but went back to using Bravo and other editors that didn’t take advantage of the keyset. (Bill Duvall of PARC wrote UGH, so I assume he used the keyset too, but I didn’t witness that.)
> 
> 
> Paul McJones
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Luisa 
> 
> (510) 856.7475
> http://luisabeck.com/
> 
> 
> 
> From: Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?
> Date: September 9, 2014 at 3:56:41 PM EDT
> To: Marc Weber <marc at webhistory.org>, "members at sigcis.org" <members at sigcis.org>
> 
> 
> Hi Marc, 
> 
> Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Could I ask a few follow-up questions? 
> 
> 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. 
>  
> Can you say more about that? What parts of Engelbart's NLS do you think are still missing?  And have they not reached the mass market because of a learning curve? Or what other potential reasons?
> 
> 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. 
> 
> Do you mean that people didn't carry on his ideas at other companies like Apple? What ideas do you think were lost and why? 
> 
> 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/
> 
> This writeup is wonderful. Thank you! Ted Nelson's Eulogy is also quite moving. 
>  
> 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/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Luisa 
>> 
>> (510) 856.7475
>> http://luisabeck.com/
>> _______________________________________________
>> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
> 
> 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 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Luisa 
> 
> (510) 856.7475
> http://luisabeck.com/
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Members mailing list
> Members at sigcis.org
> http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

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