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Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

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Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#11

Post by a4isms »

latexr wrote: post #9

> I would say that in another decade, at least some of what I’m working on will be taken for granted by millions of computer users. It’s been over a decade since the interview. Anyone familiar with anything Raskin was working then that is ubiquitous now?

Jef was a huge proponent of incremental search. That hasn't become mainstream-ubiquitous, but it is certainly code-editor-ubiquitous. Jef being an extremist, he wanted incremental search as the only mechanism for moving the cursor.

I have tried editing using only incremental search, and it was awful right up until the moment when I reached for it first instead of wanting a mouse or arrow key and then remembering I was only supposed to use incremental search.

From that moment on, I sailed along just fine. Does that mean it might have "won?" Certainly not, but all the same... Success in software design is absolutely not any kind of meritocracy outside of the tautological "If it won, it must have merit, winning is the metric for merit."

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#12

Post by adrian_b »

Someone wrote: post #5

https://folklore.org/The_Father_of_The_Macintosh.html : “There's no doubt that Jef was the creator of the Macintosh project at Apple, and that his articulate vision of an exceptionally easy to use, low cost, high volume appliance computer got the ball rolling, and remained near the heart of the project long after Jef left the company. He also deserves ample credit for putting together the extraordinary initial team t…

In TFA, Jef Raskin claims that the story about the mouse is not entirely correct:

JR: No. I designed it to be graphical from the ground up. But the text portions of the interface, which I also cared about, would have been cleaner. People have put together my dislike of the mouse (confusing dislike for a particular input device with dislike for graphic input devices in general; I personally prefer trackballs and tablets) and my careful attention to text handling to a false legend of my wanting a text-based machine. Andy [Hertzfeld, a major developer on the early Mac team], unfortunately, has not generally gone back to the original documents, and he’s interviewed lots of people about the history of the Mac, but not me. His website is, as a result, full of errors.

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#14

Post by andai »

latexr wrote: post #9

> I would say that in another decade, at least some of what I’m working on will be taken for granted by millions of computer users. It’s been over a decade since the interview. Anyone familiar with anything Raskin was working then that is ubiquitous now?

The interview is from 2005. Jef passed away a month later.

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#15

Post by GeekyBear »

Jef did go on to create a computer along the lines of his original vision after leaving Apple.

> The Canon Cat used a text-based user interface, without any pointer, mouse, icons, or graphics. All data was seen as a long "stream" of text broken into several pages. Instead of using a traditional command-line interface or menu system, the Cat used its special keyboard, with commands activated by holding down a "Use Front" key and pressing another key.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat

It was nothing like the Macintosh Apple shipped.

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#16

Post by bombcar »

sowbug wrote: post #8
NetMageSCW wrote: post #3

That interviewer really seemed to be ignorant of the facts as Jeff knows them and asked questions that kept annoying him. Left the strong impression that Jeff thought him an idiot and his questions leave the reader feeling Jeff might be right.

It might have been an emailed list of questions, rather than a real-time conversation.

It was pretty obviously a one-way street; likely emailed.

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#17

Post by 47282847 »

latexr wrote: post #9

> I would say that in another decade, at least some of what I’m working on will be taken for granted by millions of computer users. It’s been over a decade since the interview. Anyone familiar with anything Raskin was working then that is ubiquitous now?

His research work was pretty foundational. Highly recommend his book! It’s timeless, especially since he did his explorations in a time before users were already “poisoned” by existing concepts and expectations - which is also a topic in his book.

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#18

Post by jimbosis »

GeekyBear wrote: post #15

Jef did go on to create a computer along the lines of his original vision after leaving Apple. > The Canon Cat used a text-based user interface, without any pointer, mouse, icons, or graphics. All data was seen as a long "stream" of text broken into several pages. Instead of using a traditional command-line interface or menu system, the Cat used its special keyboard, with commands activated by holding down a "Use Fro…

If you want to get some flavor of what editing on the Canon Cat may have felt like, especially the LEAP keys, try Jasper and/or bitters.

Jasper:

https://lab.alexanderobenauer.com/jasper/

https://lab.alexanderobenauer.com/updates/the-jasper-report

bitters:

https://m15o.ichi.city/bitters/

https://nightfall.city/nex/in/m15o/projects/bitters/ (very similar to the link above, but Nex is a neat protocol...)

https://sr.ht/~m15o/bitters/

Furthermore, Internet Archive hosts a runnable Canon Cat Emulation. I believe this means it is available in MAME as well.

https://archive.org/details/canoncat

Re: Jef Raskin, the Visionary Behind the Mac (2013)

#20

Post by lysace »

coldtea wrote: post #19

Visionary, yes. Behind the Macintosh project, yes. Behind the Mac, as in, behind the Mac as it actually shipped, no. His ideas had little to do with it - it was almost entirely stuff designed by others when he was out of the project.

This concept of a story has been on HN so many times. It always starts with this technically correct but actually misleading headline fragment. Misleading clickbait works, even here. Every time.
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