[Discussion] IBM Stretch Computer

[Thomas Clayton]

Dear POSSI (especially the "Main-Framers" among you):

I saw the quote on p.99 of this book and was just going to copy it out for you but the library was closing shortly and I didn't have the time, so I took the book out. Glad I did. I'm not going to be able to get thru it all but everwhere I look at it, it is informative. 

From
Raskin, Jef;
The Humane Interface:
 New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems;
Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
(C)2000 ACM Press
ACM = Association for Computing Machinery

http://www.awl.com/cseng

(Dedication)
"
We are oppressed by our electronic servants.
This book is dedicated to our liberation.
 "


p.99
(Quotation beginning Chapter Five entitled Unification)
"
"It is immensely ingeious,immensely complicated, and
 extremely effective but somehow at the same time crude, wasteful,
 and inelegant, and one feels that there must be a better way
 of doing things."
--- C. Strachey (speaking not of Windows
 but of the IBM Stretch computer in 1962)
 "  


Also, members of this list - especially those who took part in  a discussion of the Macintosh OS X menu system -  may find pp.187-190 of great interest.


Of course, all you "experienced hands" probably KNOW about Raskin's book already. :-)
(like Neal Stephenson's book, _In the beginning ... was the Command Line_.)


Sincerely,

Thomas Clayton