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From: rjc@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell)
Subject: Re: De-macification of the Amiga (Re: The Amiga's Future)
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.150700.2117@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
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Organization: The Internet
References: <1991Jun23.201625.18225@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun23.204705.23687@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <51086@ut-emx.uucp>
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 91 15:07:00 GMT
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In article <51086@ut-emx.uucp> awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) writes:
>In article <1991Jun23.204705.23687@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes:
>>they were drag as outlines. The next generation UI being developed at
>>Xerox PARC takes this one step further, they have animated icons since
>>animation provides more information in less screen real estate.
>>(Perhaps Apple will steal this too.)
>
>I don't know what sort of animation the PARC GUI does, but the Mac has a couple
>of different sorts of animated icons.  Most of it is a sort of two-frame
>animation like the trashcan uses - basically a variant on the original, i.e.
>a trashcan with contents has a bulging icon.  The other sort display when
>inits are loaded.  This type has 8 frames.

  The Amiga has this too, but that's not what I'm talking about.
The PARC icons can animate with any number of frames. PARC also
implemented large virtual screens wih a technique called "clustering"
that clusters together screen information which you use a lot.
(This prevents the need for scrolling around the huge virtual screen looking
for stuff). They also present information as an "information tree".
I don't have all the details about it since I read about it a long time
ago but it sounded really neat. They have done a lot of study on
human interfacing, and came up a system that is different from the
Mac/Amiga/NeXT/etc.)

>Geez, Apple can't do anything right.  If they don't use a feature, they're
>"old technology" and if they do, they "stole it."  I can guarantee you that
>in spite of the inflated salaries and the requirements of the user base,
>Apple DOES manage to do some smart things with all that research money.
>Amazingly, people doing research on the same subject CAN come to similar
>conclusions.

 The problem is, when Apple does use a feature, they proclaim they
invented it and copyright it. I have no qualms with sharing ideas
(I think information should be free to all[i don't like software patents or
copyrights on screen layouts])  I do detest Apple's attempts at
copyrighting look-and-feel.


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