Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:46018 comp.sys.ibm.pc:40227 comp.sys.mac:44588 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!shlump.nac.dec.com!levers.enet.dec.com!plouff From: plouff@levers.enet.dec.com Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: User interface(was Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!) Message-ID: <6987@shlump.nac.dec.com> Date: 18 Dec 89 22:33:39 GMT Sender: newsdaemon@shlump.nac.dec.com Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga Distribution: na Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 38 In article <5828@internal.Apple.COM>, casseres@apple.com (David Casseres) writes... >In article jacobs@cs.utah.edu >(Steven R. Jacobs) writes: >> ...An ideal system should >> allow the user to use _either_ the mouse or the keyboard, based on the >> preference of the user. > >This may be so, but the expense of developing two user interfaces for one >system would be rather high. The real benefit of a type-in user interface >comes in being able to write a script of many commands to be executed as a >batch, and in applications where this makes sense, the application >developers have provided macro facilities that serve the purpose. For >programmers, Apple's own MPW offers a highly customizable interface that >give you just about as much type-in as you want, or as little. There is >no real need to provide something as specialized as a type-in interface at >the system level, forcing everyone to pay for it. > Point of fact, since we're getting all this GUI war stuff in comp.sys.amiga... _Every_ Amiga, from Day 1, has shipped with two user interfaces, the desktop-ish Workbench and the line-oriented CLI. There are some differences requiring programs to know which UI invoked them, but the startup code is pretty much pro forma. With the next version of the operating system, AmigaDOS 1.4 (shipping RSN), rumor has it that the two interfaces will be brought closer together with default file icons and text-oriented Workbench file list options, the latter similar to Microsoft Windows. So Amiga says "yes" to both camps. Now can you move the debate out of the Amiga newsgroup? Wes Plouff -- Wes Plouff, Digital Equipment Corp, Littleton, Mass. plouff%levers.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.com Networking bibliography: _Islands in the Net_, by Bruce Sterling _The Matrix_, by John S. Quarterman