Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: gls@odyssey.ATT.COM (g.l.sicherman)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Aesthetics of Computers
Message-ID: <1715@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 88 16:05:41 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Middletown, NJ
Lines: 25
Approved: taylor@hplabs

Recently, DAVIDLI@SIMVAX.LABMED.UMN.EDU wrote:

> Books are handy things.  They don't require electricity.  They can be taken
> anywhere, anytime.  They can be lent at little cost by virtue of the (slowly
> dwindling) resources of the Public Library System.

Unfortunately, they do require trees.  Watch what happens when trees get
more expensive than electricity!  (And yes, technologically obsolete
systems usually dwindle, sometimes ungracefully.)

> Printed material is non-linear.  I can flip from page 96 of Stewart Brand's
> book _The Media Lab_ to page 99 in an instant. ...
> CRT oriented material is linear.  While it is true that I can 'flip' from
> screen 96 to screen 99 of an on-line version of _The Media Lab_, I cannot
> keep more than 24 lines of text on the screen at a time.

David, you seem to be undermining your own argument.  The CRT, being
limited to 24 lines at a time, is not linear-homogeneous but mosaic.
Random access works *better* on a CRT than in a book.  Do you "skip
around" in _Moby Dick_?  Or Foote's history of the American Civil War?

True, CRTs lack some graphic advantages of books.  On the other hand,
CRTs can represent *motion* far better than books can.  Think about it ...

Col. G. L. Sicherman