Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!phri!roy
From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Low cost Mac's ?
Message-ID: <1990Aug31.021020.7897@phri.nyu.edu>
Date: 31 Aug 90 02:10:20 GMT
References: <25541.26DA84DD@stjhmc.fidonet.org> <1385@gold.GVG.TEK.COM> <1990Aug30.194221.29942@phri.nyu.edu> <11219@claris.com>
Sender: news@phri.nyu.edu (News System)
Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City
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I wrote:
> I defy you to show me a single program that runs on a Macintosh that my
> mother can use with no more than 30 seconds worth of one-time instruction.

peirce@claris.com (Michael Peirce) responded:
> The closest is the original MacPaint.  It's always what I tell people to
> try first and most people are drawing ugly pictures very quickly. 

	Close, but no cigar.  I remember my first experience with a Mac,
just after it was introduced.  There was a demo machine sitting out in one
of the labs, running MacPaint.  I don't remember exactly if I managed to get
the drawing tools to work or not, but I do remember being very frustrated
that no matter what I typed on the keyboard, nothing came up on the screen.
Now, a few years later, it's second nature to click on the icon of the big
"A" then to click on an insertion point to type text in a paint/draw
program, but back then, it wasn't obvious at all.

	Maybe, if I had a manual, or even had somebody to give me a
30-second "this is what you do" talk, I would have gotten the hang of it,
but left to my own devices, I was totally and completely stumped.
--
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
"Arcane?  Did you say arcane?  It wouldn't be Unix if it wasn't arcane!"