[SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

[Cary Gray]

There is a missing link that I haven't seen mentioned in this discussion, which is the work at Xerox (I don't know if it was solely at PARC) that led to the Xerox Star.  I've often heard that it was a demo of the Star from which Steve Jobs got the idea for the Lisa.  A quick search turns up a couple of videos from 1982 on YouTube; an overview is the cover article from the Sept 1989 IEEE Computer.
Also, my recollection is that Alan Kay's talk "Doing with Images Makes Symbols" (of which there was a UVC video) includes some video of his work with junior high students and Smalltalk on the Alto, from about the mid 1970s.

	Cary Gray

On Sep 9, 2014, at 12:26 PM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck at gmail.com> 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