Comment Luddite nostalgia or elegant simplicity? (Score 1) 613
I agree. Someone mentioned an Apple IIe in this forum, and I couldn't help thinking of my long-time belief that usability in operating systems has been going down since those days (while usability in actual apps has gone up.)
On those computers, you picked up a physical disk, you stuck it in the computer, you turned it on. The disk had the program on it. It ran, just like on a Super Nintendo or a Playstation. Want another program? Take out one disk, put in the other!
The "metaphor" of a physical environment did not exist, the computing environment was physical! Disks for different programs, disks for documents, disks that belonged to individual people.
I'm not advocating this as a solution, just a thinking point... But, especially for "Joe Normal", this was about as good as it ever got.
On those computers, you picked up a physical disk, you stuck it in the computer, you turned it on. The disk had the program on it. It ran, just like on a Super Nintendo or a Playstation. Want another program? Take out one disk, put in the other!
The "metaphor" of a physical environment did not exist, the computing environment was physical! Disks for different programs, disks for documents, disks that belonged to individual people.
I'm not advocating this as a solution, just a thinking point... But, especially for "Joe Normal", this was about as good as it ever got.
