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IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

devblogs.microsoft.com

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Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#131

Post by xp84 »

jjmarr wrote: post #123
toast0 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A usability feature that your users cannot use or know about doesn't increase usability. Cannot is maybe doing a lot there. There's plenty of usability features that aren't really obvious or apparent unless you look very closely. Ex: pinball machines have timed shots, but there's almost always a grace period so if you contact the ball with your flipper around when the timer hits zero and it makes the shot, chances…

You're missing the historical context. Prior to patents, inventions would commercialized as magic tricks and the mechanisms hidden. Then the inventor died and the secrets were lost. For example, Cornelis Drebbel air conditioned Westminster Abbey in 1620. King James I (of the Bible) thought it was a cool party trick. But there was little ecosystem to commercialize and Drebbel moved on with his life, trying to sell oth…

Comments like this are the absolute best part of HN. Thank you for sharing this.

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#132

Post by colejohnson66 »

Nition wrote: post #120
Henchman21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’d need to install WSL2 first though!

It's a Linux subsystem for Windows so we'll call it Windows Subsystem For Linux.

Wasn't that due to trademarks?

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#133

Post by thaumasiotes »

somat wrote: post #108
thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess that using the tab key in this way was part of a patent they were pursuing and Microsoft's use would show this to be 'obvious' and thus not patentable. Something that's bothered me about user-facing patents: Let's assume that the idea of using a keyboard key to move between input fields in a software form is not obvious, and in fact is a brilliant stroke of genius the likes of which the world is not l…

Err... wasn't your post a perfect example of why patents exist? The concept probably has a real name, I call it first mover disadvantage. It is much easier to copy a mechanism than to invent it. So why even try? Every thing you have to spend real effort to invent is trivially copied the instant you try to sell it. And them copying it don't have to bear the nearly the R&D expenses you did. so it is trivial for them to…

> Err... wasn't your post a perfect example of why patents exist?

Why? In this scenario, what would happen with a patent that wouldn't happen without a patent?

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#134

Post by macintux »

tuetuopay wrote: post #86
dmonitor wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put it where the capslock key currently goes. Not sure what purpose it serves these days.

Its whole purpose is to be remapped as CTRL, as god intended.

It was a sad day (well, presumably pair of days) when Sun & Apple gave up that fight and moved caps lock into that position.

Also, Apple definitely had the nubbins correct (D and K) and foolishly surrendered that as well: they're easier to notice when they're under the wrong fingers. With them on F and J, if your hand is offset towards the outside you're forced to notice the absence of the nubs.

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#135

Post by shrubble »

Animats wrote: post #44
ch_123 wrote: post #13

I find this story odd because IBM was consistent with their keyboard nomenclature across multiple products, and the 3270 series mainframe terminals used the Tab key, located in the same place where you would find a tab key on a modern keyboard, to move the cursor to the next field. https://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/3278/GA27-2890-4_3278_Disp... (Page 73 of the PDF) As an aside, it's worth noting that moving between f…

Here's a real IBM 3270 keyboard.[1] Note the "Next field" key on the left, and the matching "Previous field" key on the right. The IBM 3270 was a device for filling up forms. The mainframe sent the terminal a form with blanks, and the terminal let the user fill in the blanks. The terminal hardware prevented the user from overwriting the static parts of the form, and could apply some other form constraints, such as nu…

Note as well that a screenful of user-entered checked/constrained text, meant for some form of database query or insert, meant just one interrupt to the mainframe CPU; and all the info was there in an easy to parse format. Very low use of resources.

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#136

Post by wvenable »

Nition wrote: post #120
Henchman21 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’d need to install WSL2 first though!

It's a Linux subsystem for Windows so we'll call it Windows Subsystem For Linux.

For trademark safety, this is the correct approach. You can say "Blah for XXX" and that's fine but if you say "XXX blah" then you can get into trouble.

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#137

Post by jiggawatts »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #129
AndrewStephens wrote: post #124

IBM was legendarily over-managed. This is second-hand but a guy I used to work with told a story of when he interned for a summer at IBM in London during the mid-90s doing what would now be called a QA engineering. At that time everyone wore suits to work but the culture was changing so the interns put in a request to be allowed casual Fridays. Bear in mind that they were locked in a back room somewhere without any c…

I interned at an IBM R&D site in Winchester (UK) for a year in 1988-89 and none of us interns wore suits, or even ties. I don't recall many of the f/t IBMers doing so either. It was pretty informal really. (Not disputing your story, just providing a different perspective.)

I work with a lot of government departments. The "policy" is not a thing that can enforce itself, and often barely exists at all. Rarely is it actually written down!

Mostly these things boil down to a vetocracy where all managers in some hierarch must say 'yes', otherwise a single 'no' is a final 'no'.

Hence, the trick is not to ask because the more people are involved the higher the chance that one of them will say 'no'.

The manager in that office you worked in most likely made a decision themselves and didn't punt it up the hierarchy, and hence nobody told him 'no'.

The corollary to that is a clever bureaucrat can kill a proposal simply by inviting many decision makers to a meeting.

PS: It's hilarious to see this effect play out as a consultant, because often I deal with different "randomly" selected subsets of the same organisation and the difference in their day-to-day can be stark. It just boils down to which managers take individual responsibility, and which regularly beg for permission to do their job. "No."

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#138

Post by MoonWalk »

yndoendo wrote: post #87
MoonWalk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also conspicuously missing from the story is what key IBM DID want to use. I mean... that's the first question you'd ask! Lame.

It looks like it they wanted to use their existing special field management keys (field advance and field backspace) with tab being a different user experience. [0] Document does even use the word "Tab". "Field Backspace" seems to duplicate "Home" key usage under some conditions. To be fair, Microsoft & Bill Gates are bad at quality user experience. "Ctrl+F" differs through their applications. [0] https://archive.org…

"To be fair, Microsoft & Bill Gates are bad at quality user experience."

In some ways. Gates deserves never-ending enmity for plaguing us with backslashes in paths. But in others, Microsoft advanced the state of UI and UX more than anyone else in the '90s.

"Would of?"

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#139

Post by xp84 »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #113
tuetuopay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its whole purpose is to be remapped as CTRL, as god intended.

Speak for yourself. I prefer SHIFT, I have too much muscle memory with CTRL+ZXCV and just pushing down CTRL down with an edge of my palm.

Is that how you do it? I have always used my left pinky. As I try it, unless I'm moving my hands off home row, both Ctrls feel just too far to be confident I'm hitting the right one (and not hitting the modifiers second in from the edges, and not hitting both). Maybe it's just my small hands!

In terms of ergonomics, the curled-left-thumb "Command" activation (it's where Alt is on a normal keyboard) is my favorite thing about the Mac key layout.

Re: IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields

#140

Post by dark-star »

bruce511 wrote: post #34
connorboyle wrote: post #7

A great read, although I'd still like to know what IBM's reasoning for opposing this use of the Tab key was. Is it because they didn't want Tab to be both an input and a control character? I.e. there are some cases where you can type a Tab into an input field, and there are other cases where you can't, and it's not immediately obvious which ones are which? All the way in 2026, I would still be sympathetic to this vie…

Personally I don't like the tab key for field change. Firstly it was a breaking change from dos. Dos programs used Enter. And enter meant you could capture numeric data using 1 hand, since the numeric keypad has an enter key. That means left hand can stay on the (paper) source. Right hand types. People got fast at this. (Really fast). And this pattern lives on in some programs kline Excel). Lots of people (ie my cust…

> Dos programs used Enter.

I have used plenty of DOS programs back in the late 80s/early 90s, and I don't remember a single one that used "enter" to move between fields. Most of the time, "enter" closes the dialog. They all use TAB to move to the next field.

But maybe you're talking about even older software?

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