Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age?

TidBITS ^ | Tuesday, August 18, 2009 | Adam C. Engst

[Swordmaker]

Actually, I was a bit old for that... but I was one of the teenagers that was selected by Bell Labs to make my own NPN transistor... They provided everything I needed including a 2” diameter silicon wafer, the doping chemicals (which I had to mix correctly), and a lot of theoretical texts that I had to extract HOW out of. It worked. The following year, I was selected to build a voice simulator... Wow... by changing capacitors I could get it to say AAAAHHHHH, EEEEEEHHHHH, OOOOOHHHHH, UUUUUUH, Ihhhhh. etc. Consonants were beyond it.

[Star Traveler]

Well, my initial experience was that $50,000 “training computer” in our high school, in which there was no monitor, just red lights, indicating the state of the registers, a TTY to input and output and paper tape to save programming. We basically invented our own language, on the fly, as we programmed, using whatever pneumonics that we invented as we went along for the base 2, but Hexadecimal was useful too, as it would get tiresome writing all those 1 and 2s... LOL... (and very mistake-prone, too... of course...).

My first experience on the “real computers” was the GE TimeShare computer in Seattle, that was tied in with a university in Portland, where I was at. We also used TTYs for that, and dialed up the computer in Seattle from the TTY and connected. I learned BASIC on it (the “computer” taught me through its own tutorial program). I had reams and reams of rolled paper from that one... LOL...

After that, it was down to Oregon State and their computing center and learning FORTRAN, ALGOL, OSCAR (something used on campus and a specialized language, “Oregon State Conversational Aid to Research”). At that time, I carried stacks of punch cards in to the computing center to be ‘run” and would come back later to see what happened... :-)

[dennisw]

good post

[TheBattman]

Another symptom of the dumbing-down of America?

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

[Terpfen]

And a good User Interface is great (I believe in it), but it has probably contributed to the “dumbing down” of the average computer user, to the point where you get those kinds of “tech support” calls, as was indicated in that article.

I disagree. A good user interface is supposed to make "power user" features easily accessible to the average person. When people identify "the blue E" or "Outlook" as their browser, it's because of a specific failure of the interface to distinguish environments in a way that is understandable to the technologically illiterate. I'm starting to think that operating systems should include video tutorials (like the Video Professor stuff) as an opt-in introduction presented the first time someone boots their shiny new computer. Visual cues are a great way to distill what is considered an abstract field.

And to be fair, "Web browser" is an archaic term in 2009. The ability to access the Internet has taken on a specific name: "Internet Explorer." That in itself is a pretty big failure, and it's what happens when you let computer engineers design user interfaces. They assume that everyone else has the same level of technological expertise as they do, and so it's assumed that the user does not need to have concepts distilled to them. This is the big failing of Windows, and it's why people don't know about the concept of a web browser. And since people already just associate Google with the Internet, it's going to be infuriating when Chrome OS comes out, as it will be specifically constructed to present Google as the Internet, period. If it catches on, you're now going to hear "Google" as a response to "What operating system are you using?" and "What web browser are you using?" and "What web site are you using?" Good luck troubleshooting THAT.

[Star Traveler]

You said — I disagree. A good user interface is supposed to make “power user” features easily accessible to the average person.

—

:-) ... I don’t know about that one... my idea is that if you give average users “power user functions” in an easy-to-use User Interface — then you’re gonna get “power disasters”... LOL...

I would rather have it the way it is with the User Interface of the Mac OS X right now. The “power” is right below the surface, but you have to *work at it* to get there. Otherwise, all the easy to use functionality is still there for the average user...

[Terpfen]

Well, again, I would see a “power disaster” as a failing of the interface. You can’t protect users from themselves, but you can protect the computer from the user. Remember, the graphical user interface was devised because it was unreasonable to expect the average end user to learn command line prompts.

I suppose it depends on your definition of a power feature, though. It wasn’t too long ago when having a 14.4kbps modem was considered the bleeding edge of geekdom...

[Star Traveler]

Well, let’s say, for one example, not setting people up as “root” — at the very beginning, when they first get their computer. Now..,. someone might say that since a user has a right to their own system and what they do, that all users should immediately set up the computer as “root” (that first account) and then set up the subsequent accounts and then use the others and only root as needed and when needed.

BUT, with Apple, you can’t set it up as root right at the beginning. In fact, that’s shut off for most all users. You have to know how to “turn it on” and then sign up as root.

That would be one example of hiding some power user functionality and also making one “go through steps” even to take advantage of it.

[Star Traveler]

You said — Another symptom of the dumbing-down of America?

—

Well, it is surprising when some Grandmas and Grandpas are more “geeky” than their teenaged grand-daughters and grand-sons... LOL...

[Terpfen]

That would be one example of hiding some power user functionality and also making one “go through steps” even to take advantage of it.

And I would describe that as the success of the interface in making root easily accessible for a power user. :)

Okay, it's not quite the same as just typing out a command line, but it's pretty good for a graphical interface. The power user doesn't necessarily need everything accessible, but rather knows how to make the specific functionality he needs accessible. This is why things like keyboard shortcuts are considered the domain of power users.

[Star Traveler]

You said — “Racism Fail”

—

Well, some people will grasp at any straw to make their argument... LOL...

While there is a dumbing down going on (and I see it), it doesn’t mean that it supports the argument made by that person.... :-)

[Star Traveler]

Since the beginning of desktop computers, I’ve always thought that computers should do *more of the work* and the users should do less of it, and just let the users get on with the tasks that they want the computer to accomplish *for them* — as opposed as users having to do things with the computer in order to get the computer to do anything for them in the first place. The computer should eliminate all the menial and repetitive and (what I would refer to as) “useless tasks” (useless in the sense of not really needing the user for them).

Now, the power user should also be given access to get in behind the scenes if and when he (or she) wants to. So, that means having a computer that shows an interface for the mass of the public (ease of use and not requiring them to do a whole lot of “computer tasks”) and at the same time, having the ability to provide for the access of the power users.

I really do think that the User Interface that Apple has built on top of UNIX does that sort of thing that I’m talking about (at least for the most part, and as far as we’ve gotten with computers these days). I’m still waiting for the “Star Trek” talking computer when I’ll just be able to tell it to do what I want to do — even the power user things I want it to do... :-)

[Terpfen]

After that post, I don’t think our ideas are all that dissimilar. We just have slightly different expectations for power use. I can live with that. :)

[SunkenCiv]

I had my computer read this to me, and I have to say, this is siejva eap39m ,app.