The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Max Palmer — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:14:41 GMT

One UI that is still considered by many to be very easy to use and that has been around for a long time is (formerly) Acorn's RISC OS, now developed by RISC OS Ltd. I always wondered whether Microsoft (and others) ever had a suite of machines running alternative OSes to look at other approaches to GUI design. Certainly as your article indicates many ideas have been shared and built upon by different OS/GUI suppliers - which is a good thing.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Walter Lounsbery — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:08:49 GMT

Long ago, I got certified as a Xerox Star operator at Boeing. This helped me use the machine to finally complete my Masters thesis five years after leaving college.

It is ironic that Xerox managed to give away so many ideas while selling the Star at about $70,000 a station. Not many customers for a proprietary fancy word processor at that price point!

-- Walt Lounsbery

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

jensenh — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:38:02 GMT

Max,

I remember using Sibelius on Acorn in my college years before they finally gave up and ported it to Windows/Mac. We also used NEXTSTEP black hardware and Be boxes. I guess I'd recommend anyone who wants a future in interface design to get a music composition degree--you definitely use your share of exotic hardware and software.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

jensenh — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:39:11 GMT

$70,000? Just amazing.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Travis Owens — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 20:13:48 GMT

Keep in mind that the cost of the original GUI machines were not based on greed, they were based on the fact that the parts needed were not widely available, if available at all.

EX: If graphics were bleeding edge, Xerox might have had to create their own graphics cards, or pay another company prime to make cards for them.

I wouldn't be so quick to think Xerox dropped the ball as to think that they were a victum of excessive prices because the parts could not be had cheaply.

Of course companies now-a-days realize sometimes they have to bite the bullet and take a loss when there is a longterm profit to be had (video game systems have been doing this for 2 decades now, Microsoft realized that before they got into the Xbox).

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Greg Titus — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:51:26 GMT

"overlapping windows"

I've always heard it said that the Alto only had tiled windows and not overlapping windows. When the people from Apple saw the system they thought that they'd seen overlapping windows and when on to figure out how to implement them in the Lisa, which surprised the PARC people because PARC hadn't done it that way. Is this folklore?

"Apple was first to borrow and expand upon the ideas of the Star"

In fact, Apple paid Xerox in Apple stock for the use of the GUI IP, so they were paying rather than borrowing. I only mention this because it is so often misreported that Apple 'stole' the ideas from PARC.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Jeremy Reimer — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:12:25 GMT

"I've always heard it said that the Alto only had tiled windows and not overlapping windows. When the people from Apple saw the system they thought that they'd seen overlapping windows and when on to figure out how to implement them in the Lisa, which surprised the PARC people because PARC hadn't done it that way. Is this folklore?"

The Alto had overlapping windows. What it didn't have that Apple engineer Bill Atkinson *thought* he saw, was the ability to redraw portions of partially-obscured windows when a new window was brought to the front, or moved. Bill invented this technique, called "regions", and it remains in use to this day.

The confusion about overlapping versus tiled comes about because the Star (released after the Alto) abandoned overlapping windows in favor of tiled windows because it was thought to be easier for the user to understand. The system was still capable of overlapping, however, as you could see whenever dialog boxes came up.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Travis Owens — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 23:57:58 GMT

Greg,

As far as I've read you are correct, the PARC did not have overlapping windows, they could tile.

And back on the original blog post, I should point out inactive windows on the PARC not redrawing is a good thing, no sense in wasting precious CPU or graphic cycles on windows that aren't important, this is a luxury only post 1980 cpus could afford. Although in a tile windowed enviroment the non-updating windows is right in your face, instead of hidden "behind the scenes".

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

jensenh — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:56:04 GMT

It's also true that Windows 1.0 only had tiled windows for the same reason--it was thought that it would be easier for the user to understand.

Overlapped windows because the a top feature request, of course, and that was added in Windows 2.0.

Totally agree that not painting inactive windows might have been a good thing on that early hardware. I was mostly trying to point out that there are nuances of the design you don't get just from seeing a screenshot.

I wish we had emulators for these old machines where people could really play with them in depth. (There are bunch of obscure systems I've never been able to play with, like Apollo Domain/OS.)

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Andre — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 02:38:27 GMT

Here's a great website also about interfaces:
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Alan. — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 16:07:41 GMT

"Any discussion about the user interface of computers today has to start all the way back at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s."

Surely discussions about UI's should start with Douglas Englebart? ;)

Though strictly speaking, I think you are referring to GUI and not UI - most machines have UI's, otherwise, how could a user and machine interact? Even the command line is a user interface.

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

jensenh — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 06:08:26 GMT

OK, you've got me there. Doug Englebart it is. :)

re: The Why of the New UI (Part 1)

Preston — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:10:23 GMT

"It's also true that Windows 1.0 only had tiled windows for the same reason--it was thought that it would be easier for the user to understand. "

While this may be partly true, most believe that Windows 1.0 didn't tile its windows so as not to step on the original MacOS' toes. :) It didn't matter; Apple went on and sued Microsoft anyway.

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