The Rodent Revolution
Sydney Morning Herald
Sunday October 16, 1988
THE WAY a computer's screen looks when the user gives it commands, and the way it responds or "feels," is rapidly emerging as a dominant force shaping the personal computer industry. Designers increasingly are focusing on what they call a machine's "graphical user interface" or its "look and feel".
In the world of the graphical user interface, the mouse, a device rolled about on a desktop to move the cursor on the computer screen and give commands, will replace the old way of controlling the computer through typed words.
Experts say that no longer will the industry's competitive forces be focused on the circuit boards and microprocessors inside a personal computer.
Increasingly, buying a personal computer will mean choosing between competing graphics displays that permit the user to view multiple programs such as spreadsheets, data bases and word processors simultaneously.
In virtually all cases, the mouse will be used to issue commands.
This latest development has its origins in the introduction of Apple Computer's Macintosh machine four years ago. The Macintosh had a distinctive look and feel with a graphical interface and a mouse to point to commands displayed on the screen as clever icons.
Now, personal computer buyers are about to be inundated by graphical user interfaces, many of them inspired by Apple's success.
IBM and Microsoft, in a joint venture, are scheduled this month to begin shipping Presentation Manager, a program that brings a graphics approach to computing in the IBM and IBM-compatible world.
It will employ a graphical user interface and a mouse, although, as an option, commands still can be entered at the keyboard.
"We must make computers more natural for people to use," said William Lowe, president of IBM's Entry Systems division. "In our vision a more natural computing environment will be both instinctive and intuitive."
IBM has taken aboard several key allies to support its new assault on Apple's turf.
In San Francisco, Steve Jobs has just introduced his NeXt Computer System, which is heavily oriented to a graphical user interface.
At the same time, Jobs, the former chairman of Apple Computer and the creative force behind the Macintosh, announced an unusual alliance with IBM in which Jobs's former arch-enemy will license the NeXt computer's user interface technology for IBM desktop machines.
IBM has indicated that it plans to incorporate a visual programming language into future versions of Presentation Manager. This language would enable users to issue complex series of commands by linking icons - small graphic images - on the computer's screen.
The new focus on software represents a step away from the PC industry's current obsession with bits and bytes.
IBM is not the only manufacturer to take aim at competing directly with Apple's graphical interface.
Atari, Commodore and Tandy have all adopted their own graphical user interfaces which offer many of the features of the Macintosh.
Sun Microsystems, now a dominant manufacturer of high-powered computer work stations, is getting ready to make its own entry into the inexpensive PC market.
Next March the company plans to introduce a low-cost Macintosh-like computer that will have a graphical interface called Open Look.
Soon, graphical interfaces will confront computer users with many new concepts and alternatives.
For example, while menus of tasks the computer can perform pull down from the top of the Macintosh screen, in Sun's Open Look system they "pop up" at the spot where the cursor is pointing.
In contrast, Presentation Manager is designed to work with either a mouse or keyboard commands to select from a menu of options.
The manner in which computer designers choose to mix these alternatives is at the heart of the look and feel of a user interface.
The new arrivals in graphical interfaces increase pressure on Apple to come up with new approaches for its interface on the Macintosh.
Since introducing its interface in 1984, Apple has added the ability to run several programs simultaneously. The company has said that it plans to make even greater changes in the way people use their computers.
This year, John Sculley, Apple's chairman, showed a public relations film called Knowledge Navigator which features an advanced portable computer. In Apple's vision, future users will interact with computers capable of displaying TV-like animation and speaking to them.
Until the introduction of the Presentation Manager program, computing in the IBM realm has reflected the company's stodgy data-processing roots. IBM user interfaces generally have been "character-based", meaning that computers were controlled by typed commands on a keyboard.
Macintosh's introduction of a mouse, icons and menus was controversial at first. But it has been gaining popularity for several reasons.
First, graphical user interfaces generally are easier and more inviting for the computer novice and they can be quickly mastered.
More significant, however, such designs usually offer a consistency not found in traditional personal computer environments. In the Macintosh world, for example, software developers universally support the interface.
Thus, once a user has mastered the Macintosh screen and mouse, using new programs is often possible without training and frequent consultation with instruction manuals. Corporate computer managers prefer such ease of use since it reduces time and expense lost to training.
Last March, it appeared that the rush to graphical user interfaces might be slowed when Apple brought a suit against Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, contending that versions of Hewlett-Packard's New Wave program and Microsoft's Windows program had infringed on what the suit called Apple's copyrighted"audiovisual works".
Windows is a program for the IBM computer environment that permits the user to have several programs on the screen at once.
But the suit has run into delays in the courts and many industry experts now believe that the rapid appearance of new interfaces will make it moot by the time it is heard.
The recent user interface developments mark the third generation of the way people interact with computers. Before the 1970s, users controlled their room-sized machines by submitting programs key-punched in stacks of cards. These cards were read by the computers, which ran the program and then printed results on reams of paper.
During the 1970s, the advent of the mini-computer permitted several users to share a computer simultaneously, first communicating with it through a teletype keyboard and later through keyboards and television-like screens. Programs were executed by entering typed commands. Such character-based interfaces carried over into the personal computer era.
Simultaneously, however, researchers at Xerox were experimenting with visual interfaces to computers.
On experimental computers designed at Xerox, information could be displayed in several "windows" on the screen and the experimental computers were controlled by the combination of a keyboard and mouse-pointing device.
It was during this period that Xerox permitted Jobs to visit its Palo Alto Research Center. He was quickly convinced that Apple could inexpensively commercialise the experimental technology he saw. He hired away several Xerox employees and started development projects to build what became the Lisa and Macintosh computers.
© 1988 Sydney Morning Herald