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From: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu (Gary Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: User interface(was Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!)
Message-ID: <1329@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 89 16:45:48 GMT
References: <5876@internal.Apple.COM>
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Reply-To: gdavis@primate.wisc.edu
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From article <5876@internal.Apple.COM>, by casseres@apple.com (David Casseres):
> 
> Is it the Finder's lack of type-in interface that bothers you?  The Finder 
> is not the system, it's just an application.  Numerous developers have 
> written substitutes for the Finder, and some of them provide a type-in 
> interface.  I don't know if any of these are on the market, though, 
> because in fact very few people seem to want this kind of interface on the 
> Finder.
> 
Soon after the Mac was introduced there were at least two command-line
Finder substitutes available for the Mac from third parties. Someone
even ported CPM 68K over (So the Mac could have a real operating
system -:)). None of this stuff sold, except maybe to Jerry Pournelle.
Most Mac users, including the many technically adept converts from 
older systems like MS-DOS or Apple DOS, quickly saw that a command
line wasn't really needed.

I suspect some of the people who insist that command lines are faster
than menus haven't really used the Mac and are thinking of the
often clumsier kinds of nested, modal menu systems you can find
on MS-DOS.

I wouldn't want to claim that there are never situations where
command lines might not be useful, especially when you can
combine them into batch files, though these situations are rare.

Someone has probably already pointed out the MPW does give you
command line and batch file capabilities, though you have to
pay extra for it. But there is also a public domain command
line and batch file interface available for the Mac, which
looks pretty much like MS-DOS. I don't remember its name, but
I think it's available on sumex.

I think it's fair to say too that Apple actually includes a
command line with every Mac, namely HyperCard. You can do
pretty much any kind of file management you might like from
the message box in HyperCard, though it is true that you
would need to plug in some XCMDs. But HyperCard was designed
to make plugging in extra functions very easy.

HyperCard also can serve as a very nice batch file facility,
much more powerful than that in MS-DOS and more like
REXX in its capabilities. I have to admit that occasionally
a facility like this can be quite useful. For instance, I had
845 small text files containing experimental data that
I needed to analyze in various ways. It was quite easy to
set up HyperCard to open all those files in succession,
do the analyses and dump out files with the results. I
wouldn't have wanted to sit down with the average interactive-
style Mac program and go through them all myself.

Gary Davis