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@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@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/