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From: hermens@groucho
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Low cost Mac's ?
Message-ID: <1990Aug31.161917.3852@groucho>
Date: 31 Aug 90 16:19:17 GMT
References: <25541.26DA84DD@stjhmc.fidonet.org> <1385@gold.GVG.TEK.COM> <1990Aug30.194221.29942@phri.nyu.edu> <11219@claris.com> <1990Aug31.021020.7897@phri.nyu.edu>
Reply-To: hermens@ted.UUCP (Leonard Hermens)
Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow
Lines: 27

In article <1990Aug31.021020.7897@phri.nyu.edu> roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>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!"