Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpsemc!mbk
From: mbk@hpsemc.HP.COM (Miles Kehoe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Message-ID: <620014@hpsemc.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Dec 88 18:08:53 GMT
References: <4362@pitt.UUCP>
Organization: HP Technology Access Center, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 30

Before anyone gets too excited about IR connections to computers
hanging around...

1)  IBM does have a very high quality monochrome monitor that is 
    about 2 inches thick - it looks great, but right now is just
    an intelligent ascii terminal.
2)  An IR link to my computer would be great - but don't forget
    the 20 other people who sit in the same general 'room' with
    me with 60 inch cubies around each of us.  I don't want my
    IR getting in their way, and I sure don't want my password,
    notes postings, rantings and ravings to be bouncing around
    to their screens.
3)  Desktop metaphors are fine for metaphors, but what about
    so much of the world that wants a command line interface
    badly?  The Unix gurus who fight desktop metaphors every day
    have managed to make AUX get held up in delivery (or is
    there another reason they haven't apparently sold a zillion
    Unix versions the were hoping to sell?).  Real customers
    (ie, the ones who pay commercial computer manufacturers to
    design and build systems) often think the desktop metaphor
    is cute, but when it boils down to it, they want to fill
    in their customer forms which look "just like our manual forms"
    and they don't particularly care if behind the scenes of 
    their accounting package there is a desktop, a command line,
    or a little man or woman who gets the work done.  Just make
    sure this order gets entered and billed.
(This is why the rest of the world doesn';t get excited about
x-windows, ms windows, or anything more dramatic than their
$500 vt-100 clone can do.....)
Miles Kehoe