I do recall an advertisement for the Mac, when it first appeared, that its users had no need to consult the manual, as the Mac’s use was intuitively obvious. At the time I was very skeptical of this seemingly-outrageous claim; I was a die-hard DOS user, with its accompanying thick users’ manuals and cryptic error messages. But I recall being intrigued by the ad. If correct, then there probably would not have been such an instructional video, at least not produced by Apple. Postscript: Just looked at _Byte_, special issue, Feb. 1984: “Once you have bought it, though, you will probably be learning how to use the Mac on your own. Apple will help you in this process by providing you with a cassette/disk combination. You boot up the 3 ½ inch disk tutorial and listen to the interactive lesson provided on the cassette (Of course, you have to have a cassette player). Although I have not seen the cassette/disk tutorial program, I think it will work well; text-only tutorial programs are fine, but many buyers of the Mac will benefit from the warmth of a human voice teaching them.” The National Museum of American History acquired a Mac almost on Day One; I’ll check & see if they got this cassette/disk combination. (Of course, if they have it, we will need to find a cassette player!) Paul C. From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Paul N. Edwards Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 7:50 AM To: Luisa Emmi Beck Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh? Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos existed? It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and DVDs were not invented until 1995. I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives! Best, Paul Edwards On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@gmail.com<mailto: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/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@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 ___________________________ Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information<http://www.si.umich.edu/> and History<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/>, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming<http://pne.people.si.umich.edu/vastmachine/index.html> (MIT Press, 2010) Terse replies are deliberate<http://five.sentenc.es/> (and better than nothing) University of Michigan School of Information<http://www.si.umich.edu/> 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu<http://pne.people.si.umich.edu>

Just to be sure it’s clear what Peter’s saying: "The tutorial was on a single 400K floppy disk which guided the user through a series of lessons to use the previously unknown mouse and desktop-metaphor computer-interface which we take for granted today. A separate audio cassette was required to describe the actions of the pre-recorded tutorial animations as computers were not yet capable of multi-media presentations of this type.” (from the description on the YouTube video) So one could have had the experience of listening to this sound track while watching these images, but it was not a “video” in the sense that we mean that today (images + sound) - it was a silent computer animation, plus an audio presentation on a tape cassette which one ran separately. Best, Paul On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:05 , Peter Sachs Collopy <peter@collopy.net> wrote:

I think I might have a copy of this audiotape, or maybe a later version. But in any case…

There is a video on YouTube which includes the sound from the audiocassette distributed with the Macintosh in 1984, and video from the tutorial disk. It also has a minute of color advertising video at the beginning which of course was not part of that tutorial, but the rest of it appears to be as one would experience it with the original media: https://www.youtube.com/user/Mac128DOTcom/videos.

I would be curious if similar audio tutorials exist for other machines or if this was a peculiarity of the Mac. Anyone know of other examples?

Peter

On Sep 9, 2014, at 9:23 AM, Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP@si.edu> wrote:

...

I do recall an advertisement for the Mac, when it first appeared, that its users had no need to consult the manual, as the Mac’s use was intuitively obvious. At the time I was very skeptical of this seemingly-outrageous claim; I was a die-hard DOS user, with its accompanying thick users’ manuals and cryptic error messages. But I recall being intrigued by the ad. If correct, then there probably would not have been such an instructional video, at least not produced by Apple.

Postscript: Just looked at _Byte_, special issue, Feb. 1984: “Once you have bought it, though, you will probably be learning how to use the Mac on your own. Apple will help you in this process by providing you with a cassette/disk combination. You boot up the 3 ½ inch disk tutorial and listen to the interactive lesson provided on the cassette (Of course, you have to have a cassette player). Although I have not seen the cassette/disk tutorial program, I think it will work well; text-only tutorial programs are fine, but many buyers of the Mac will benefit from the warmth of a human voice teaching them.”

The National Museum of American History acquired a Mac almost on Day One; I’ll check & see if they got this cassette/disk combination. (Of course, if they have it, we will need to find a cassette player!)

Paul C.

From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Paul N. Edwards Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 7:50 AM To: Luisa Emmi Beck Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos existed?

It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and DVDs were not invented until 1995.

I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives!

Best,

Paul Edwards

On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , 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/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are athttp://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

___________________________

Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010)

Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)

University of Michigan School of Information 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

___________________________ Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010) Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing) University of Michigan School of Information 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

a couple of thoughts here… CUE, the Computer Using Educators group founded in Berkeley in 1978 by LeRoy Finkel among others. See http://www.cue.org/leroyfinkel LeRoy was a prolific writer, esp of manuals for computers (he did 22 books about PCs, Macs, UNIX, etc. His wife, Sue Talley, was with Apple, in Apple education, for years. She’s a graduate of MECC, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. She’s now back in Minneapolis, with Capella University. I’m thinking that CUE, or MECC, or Sue herself, could help you in this quest The other possibility is Peter Hirshberg was Apple’s publicist (e.g. videographer and advertising genius) during those years. He undoubtedly has videotapes from this period. Best, Chuck House InnovaScapes Institute On Sep 9, 2014, at 4:50 AM, Paul N. Edwards <pne@umich.edu> wrote:

Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos existed?

It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and DVDs were not invented until 1995.

I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives!

Best,

Paul Edwards

On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , 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/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

___________________________

Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010)

Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)

University of Michigan School of Information 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

Hello Luisa, What immediately came to my mind was the video of the demo when the Mac was introduced in 1984. At the demo they went through some of the features of the Mac as well as MacWrite and MacPaint; here's a version shown at the 30th anniversary of the demo earlier this year. But as Paul asks, are you looking for material on early personal computers (i.e. mid to late 1970s, including the Apple II) or on Macintosh, which came nearly a decade later in '84? In either case we have a lot of video and audio in our collection at the Computer History Museum, you can start with our online Catalog Search which includes 85,000 records: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search. Once you enter a term, say "Macintosh," you can refine by clicking on "moving image" or "audio": http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=macintosh&f=movingimage Three other places to look would be Stanford Libraries (although I'm not sure how much multimedia they have easily accessible), the Internet Archive (archive.org) and the Digibarn (digibarn.org). Best, Marc Marc Weber | marc@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 4:50 AM, Paul N. Edwards wrote:

Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos existed?

It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and DVDs were not invented until 1995.

I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives!

Best,

Paul Edwards

On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , 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/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

___________________________

Paul N. Edwards Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010)

Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)

University of Michigan School of Information 3439 North Quad 105 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285 (734) 764-2617 (office) (206) 337-1523 (fax) pne.people.si.umich.edu

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

Hi Luisa, Michael, et al. Throwing my 2 cents in – there are some nice local Apple ads for “business computers” that have recently been posted to youtube by Nga Taonga Sound & Vision (new name for the New Zealand Film Archive). The humour is very local -- complete with sheepdog references -- but they both convey the ‘gee whiz’ factor. Both date from 1984. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLivba1MW4WrVAB98gWczDbTyatDQ3fLYP I also wanted to respond to Michael’s point on the question of needs/uses for a micro in the home prior to this time, which I’d echo. The question of use and what one would use a computer for was a recurrent question. I have published on these discourses in the Australian context (“Questions of Microcomputers’ Usefulness in 1980s Australia”), if anyone’s interested. The role of games is decisive, though I would also say that there was a strong homebrew game (and other software) writing movement, at least in this part of the world, so gaming on a micro was distinct from something like an Atari VCS. Melanie -- Assoc. Prof. Melanie Swalwell ARC Future Fellow Screen and Media, Flinders University GPO Box 2100 Adelaide SA 5001 Ph: +61 8 8201 2619 278 Humanities Bldg www.flinders.edu.au<http://www.flinders.edu.au/> http://www.flinders.edu.au/people/melanie.swalwell Popular Memory Archive: http://playitagainproject.org<http://www.playitagainproject.org/> Play It Again blog: http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/play-it-again/ Australasian Heritage Software Database: www.ourdigitalheritage.org<http://www.ourdigitalheritage.org/> CRICOS Provider: 00114A This email and any attachments may be confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please inform the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message. From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Michael Newman Sent: Wednesday, 10 September 2014 1:08 AM To: Luisa Emmi Beck Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh? Hi Luisa, in my research on home computers from the 1970s I haven't found that the idea of personal computing was always represented as something new and incredible. Computers were familiar to people (many of whom had a negative impression of them as instruments of institutional control) and it wasn't clear what needs a home computer would satisfy. One persistent question in articles about home computers in magazines like Esquire was: what are you actually going to do with it? A frequent answer was that you would use a computer to learn how to use a computer. Probably the most common use for many people who bought a computer for the home was playing games, which wasn't so different from using something like an Atari VCS. In advertisements for home computers on TV, you will find some of that "new and incredible" tone -- they're selling a product, after all, though what they're selling is as much a platform for games as it is a computer for programming or other more "productive" uses. The "Atari brings the computer age home" campaign would offer some nice examples of this, and some (in poor quality) are on YouTube. michael z. newman zigzigger<http://zigzigger.blogspot.com/> | @mznewman<http://twitter.com/mznewman> assoc prof, journalism, advertising, & media studies, uw-milwaukee On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@gmail.com<mailto: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<tel:%28510%29%20856.7475> http://luisabeck.com/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@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

Mike, you mention programming as one productive use of early personal computers, but programming was also one of the principal recreational and educational uses. The Apple II manuals included an intro to Basic programming and newbies would dive in and learn to program. There was an implication that you could program up a bunch of useful applications for yourself, but that required more in terms of time and technical knowledge than most users had. It was a thrill, though, to learn to do some calculation, "poke" memory locations, make a few sounds, and get some shapes to show up on the screen. Early definitions of computer literacy, including, I believe, one from ACM's SIGUCCS, included programming skills as fundamental. For many or most, to use a computer was to program. In the lab where I was a grad student, the prof brought in an Apple IIe and all the students working for him were expected to learn Basic and start developing data analysis programs (even though they had no background in computing). We didn't even have a text editor for data files, so I wrote a simple line-oriented one in Basic. Though this is in the "productive" category, it paralleled the typical trajectory of the huge numbers of recreational and hobby users. Mags like Dr. Dobb's Journal were mainly about the techniques and joys of programming, useful or not. Alas, the cultural positioning of "coding" has evolved toward the extremes of uncool! Bill ________________________________ From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [members-bounces@sigcis.org] on behalf of Michael Newman [mznewman37@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 11:37 AM To: Luisa Emmi Beck Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh? Hi Luisa, in my research on home computers from the 1970s I haven't found that the idea of personal computing was always represented as something new and incredible. Computers were familiar to people (many of whom had a negative impression of them as instruments of institutional control) and it wasn't clear what needs a home computer would satisfy. One persistent question in articles about home computers in magazines like Esquire was: what are you actually going to do with it? A frequent answer was that you would use a computer to learn how to use a computer. Probably the most common use for many people who bought a computer for the home was playing games, which wasn't so different from using something like an Atari VCS. In advertisements for home computers on TV, you will find some of that "new and incredible" tone -- they're selling a product, after all, though what they're selling is as much a platform for games as it is a computer for programming or other more "productive" uses. The "Atari brings the computer age home" campaign would offer some nice examples of this, and some (in poor quality) are on YouTube. michael z. newman zigzigger<http://zigzigger.blogspot.com/> | @mznewman<http://twitter.com/mznewman> assoc prof, journalism, advertising, & media studies, uw-milwaukee On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 10:28 PM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@gmail.com<mailto: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<tel:%28510%29%20856.7475> http://luisabeck.com/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org<mailto:members@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

Michael, your thoughts here bring to mind some pondering I've done on not the origins of the so-called "personal" computer, but rather the *consumer* computer. As you state, the consumer computer (appliance) was often purchased without a well-defined need to be met, but "because it was there." I won't argue that it did not ultimately serve an important role, that of bringing the computer in from the cold (institutional control, abstract science, etc.) but as a side effect, not a planned strategy. With admittedly only casual consideration of the premise, I do suspect that identifying the 'first' consumer computer(s) is a far more tractable historical analysis than the search for a similar origin of the 'personal' computer. - Ian On Sep 9, 2014 12:47 PM, "Michael Newman" <mznewman37@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Luisa, in my research on home computers from the 1970s I haven't found that the idea of personal computing was always represented as something new and incredible. Computers were familiar to people (many of whom had a negative impression of them as instruments of institutional control) and it wasn't clear what needs a home computer would satisfy. One persistent question in articles about home computers in magazines like *Esquire* was: what are you actually going to do with it? A frequent answer was that you would use a computer to learn how to use a computer. Probably the most common use for many people who bought a computer for the home was playing games, which wasn't so different from using something like an Atari VCS. In advertisements for home computers on TV, you will find some of that "new and incredible" tone -- they're selling a product, after all, though what they're selling is as much a platform for games as it is a computer for programming or other more "productive" uses. The "Atari brings the computer age home" campaign would offer some nice examples of this, and some (in poor quality) are on YouTube.

michael z. newman zigzigger <http://zigzigger.blogspot.com/> | @mznewman <http://twitter.com/mznewman> assoc prof, journalism, advertising, & media studies, uw-milwaukee

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 10:28 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/

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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

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 <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@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@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/

On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@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, I am sad to say that Smokey Wallace (I don’t remember anyone actually calling him “Donald”!) died in 2010. I’ll send you a private email with some other people you could try to contact. Paul On Sep 9, 2014, at 12:59 PM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@gmail.com> wrote:

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@mcjones.org> wrote: On Sep 9, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@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/

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@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@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/ _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@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@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@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