[kwlug-disc] UX: the more things change, the more they stay the same

[John Johnson]

As seen on a blog / newsletter.
excerpt(w/edits):

We have come full circle. In the bad old days, using ASR32 Teletypes, we 
used to type program names at prompts.
[I recall the IBM Selectric terminals, a step up from the ASR TTYs.]

Later, on the text-only screens of "Glass Teletypes", we continued to 
type text: commands which were often tortuously - but ingeniously - 
abbreviated to five characters.
[I recall the ADM3 ADM5 VolkerCraig VT52 VT100 TeleVideo etc etc etc]

Then Xerox invented the GUI, where we pointed at what we wanted and 
clicked on it, instead of typing in a name.

Apple copied Xerox, and Microsoft copied Apple.

Interestingly, in accordance with the laws of physics concerning 
increasing entropy, each copy was worse than its predecessor.

So having run a point-and-click interface for more than 30 years since 
the original Apple Mac, and then through Windows 1, 3, 95, ...and so on 
to Windows 7.

We continued to point-and-click.

Now we have Windows 8, with gesture recognition (does anyone doing 
serious work need gesture recognition?)

How are we supposed to use it?

Why, by typing a name into a text box!

Who said that the more things change, the more they stay the same?

/excerpt

JohnJ