Re: [9fans] architectures

Re: [9fans] architectures

[geoff]

> oh, and the G4 cubes are just really _pretty_.

I read in one of the local papers, I think it was yesterday,
that Apple have announced that they won't be making any more G4 cubes,
along with a few other products.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Dan Cross]

In article <20010711173858.008EB199E4@mail.cse.psu.edu> you write:
>I read in one of the local papers, I think it was yesterday,
>that Apple have announced that they won't be making any more G4 cubes,
>along with a few other products.

Oh, bummer.  I think that the cubes would have made really killer
Plan 9 terminals, but you're right; they're `suspending' production
indefinately.  Apparantly, the cubes just weren't selling enough.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/jul/03cube.html

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
>
> That's not really what DEC's problem was; there are whole books on this.

the rot had really set in at Digital as early as '93 when i was at PRL.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

> A lot of those, even reasonably intelligent adults have
> trouble operating effectively.  I don't think they should
> serve as models for good human-interface design.

very true.  when confronted with my first GSM mobile i
thought i'd never understand it.  it's just a radio and
i'd done all my radio stuff 20 years earlier.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Boyd Roberts wrote:
> eg. mobile phones, ATMs, wave ovens, washing machines,
>     cd/dvd players, cable decoders etc etc ...

A lot of those, even reasonably intelligent adults have
trouble operating effectively.  I don't think they should
serve as models for good human-interface design.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Dan Cross wrote:
> Hmm, I predict that Sun will be the DEC of the 2000's; they'll stick
> to an obsolete and overburdened product line until it's too late, ...

That's not really what DEC's problem was; there are whole books on this.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Rick Hohensee]

The 3-button mouse is one of X's great correctnesses. Try this...

	INDEX finger click
	MIDDLE finger click
	RING finger click

Now try it with a <3 button mouse.


When one can DL Plan 9 or a unix for free, the 3-week period spoken of,
which is probably dead-on for regular expressions, is all over the
place. A big Linux distro has enough stuff in it to keep anyone of any
intellect a newbie for a lifetime. SO, the challenge is to allow the UI to
adapt as clue accrues.


"intuitive". Scary word, eh? In a thread in comp.lang.forth somebody said
research basically says that intuitive=familiar. Yes, "the desktop" is
retarded, but what's more general and familiar?


For a minimal UI simplifier, I have "pasties". Text menus that can be
invoked by pasting pieces of my shell prompt into my shell. The menus
aren't even scripted. You cut/paste the choice. The user can add items if
they can type. "edit this menu" is the last option in every menu. The
command to do so is the prefix, so it's a reminder. A training aid. This
is on Linux, but was inspired in part by Plan 9 embracing the fact that
the screen provides a feedback loop through the user.

Rick Hohensee
		www.clienux.com

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

> My suggestion was to build a different interface,
> just for my mother, ...

the whole point is to design a good interface.  it's
got nothing to do with computers.  non computer savvy
people use 'em all the time without even knowing.

eg. mobile phones, ATMs, �wave ovens, washing machines,
    cd/dvd players, cable decoders etc etc ...

not that i'm saying that many of these interfaces are
perfect.

anyway it's a bit like cars.  you don't need to know
how every component works or how it was designed or
constructed to drive it.

come to think about it you can bring it down to knives;
you don't need to know anything about metals to use one.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

From: "rob pike" <rob@plan9.bell-labs.com>
> This is a very deep point.  One of the greatest mistakes (or missed opportunities,
> or strokes of genius, depending on how you look at it) of the familiar modern
> computer interface is the attempt to tie it to real-world objects.  Trash cans,
> desktops, paper clips: come on!  The power of computation lies in its being
> abstract, and the drive should be to find ways of working that are not mere
> echoes of traditional methods.

so very true.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Dan Cross]

In article <20010712181225.17835.qmail@g.bio.cse.psu.edu> you write:
>``...in designing Sun's home page we decided we needed to change it drastically
>every month to keep the users' interest...''

Hmm, I predict that Sun will be the DEC of the 2000's; they'll stick
to an obsolete and overburdened product line until it's too late, and
then get bought out by Dell and ultimately squashed under foot.

	- Dan ``I saw a Solarian Light'' C.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Martin Harriss]

Scott Schwartz wrote:
>
> > http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm
>
> ``...in designing Sun's home page we decided we needed to change it drastically
> every month to keep the users' interest...''
>
> No wonder it's so totally impossible to find anything in there!  That one
> statement makes me doubt every other thing they said.  Sun's web site
> has to be the worst I've ever used, especially taking into account
> the obviously huge amount of effort that goes into it.  It's clearly
> all about entertaining suits, and not at all about making information
> available to users who don't want to waste their time.

It's also one of the slowest web sites around.  I hate to think of the
amount of time that I've had to wait wating for their pages to load.
They used to *boast* that their web services were provided by a pair of
Ultra 1's.  Looks like they still are.

</gripe>
Martin

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Scott Schwartz]

> http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm

``...in designing Sun's home page we decided we needed to change it drastically
every month to keep the users' interest...''

No wonder it's so totally impossible to find anything in there!  That one
statement makes me doubt every other thing they said.  Sun's web site
has to be the worst I've ever used, especially taking into account
the obviously huge amount of effort that goes into it.  It's clearly
all about entertaining suits, and not at all about making information
available to users who don't want to waste their time.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Matt]

> An interesting related bit of work is "The Anti-Mac Interface" by Don
> Gentner and Jakob Nielson, Communications of the ACM, 29(8), pp. 70-82
> August 1996, but also found online.

http://www.acm.org/cacm/AUG96/antimac.htm

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Ozan Yigit]

forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk writes:

> contrary to Tog's advice on this point: with care i suspect
> you can make abstractions simple and effective enough without insisting on
> drawing a tenuous likeness to something in the `real world'.

An interesting related bit of work is "The Anti-Mac Interface" by Don
Gentner and Jakob Nielson, Communications of the ACM, 29(8), pp. 70-82
August 1996, but also found online. i wish we could have more of this kind
of de/re-construction; attempting to break all the interface design rules
and see what comes out. the results of this particular attempt are more
along the lines of raisin-bran cereal than waldorf salad but thought
provoking nevertheless.

oz
--
www.cs.yorku.ca/~oz	 | if you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe
york u. computer science | we'll just have to make some!   -- hobbes

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Laura Creighton]

re: drawing tenuous likenesses to the real world.

It is possible in the days before everybody knew what a computer was,
and a computer program was, that there was some value in giving a user
a metaphor with something else on the real world.  These days it is a
major problem because quite frequently the metaphor is lousier than
what we could write if we focused on _how efficiently can we do what
we want to do_ rather than _what is something, anything, that somebody
is likely to have done before which is sort of like what we want to do_.

My favourite example is the desktop metaphor.  Now neat people can
have the experience of a messed up and cluttered desk.  You too can
lose important work and documents because you can't find them!

Laura

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Laura Creighton]

my experience with non-techie folks is that once they get over the
conceptual hurdle of actually believing that can use a different
finger than their index finger to point with, they think that
being able to use their machine efficiently to do what they want is
as cool as the rest of us do.

The problem is that naive users are what people design for, because
customers who have never bought your product are by definition naive
users of it.  But naive users have a limited lifetime.  For a few
years I was involved with a project that tried to measure exactly how
limited the lifetime was. We came up with ~3 weeks for most users for
every program we tried to measure.  At this point, they become
frustrated users who want a better interface, or resigned users who
don't believe that there is a better interface because they have only
used computer interfaces designed for the naive.  The big lesson I
learned from this was to teach how to user regular expressions to every
vi user who has been using vi for at least 3 weeks ... but not
before then ... and make their lives a lot happier.  And to cheerfully
and patiently listen to all the complaints of the new users who found the
interface hard to learn, because, after all they deserve the respect
of having their complaints listened to and acknowledged; and then
carefully filing whatever changes they want under `things that they
most likely do will not want to change in about 3 weeks'.

Of course if your interface is truly lousy, the naive uers may quit
before 3 weeks is up.  And if you have botched some detail, the complaints
will continue after the 3 weeks.  But while you must never, ever
treat anybody with such contempt as to reply `you aren't significant
enough to have an opinion' - naive users truly are not significant
enough -- because like butterflies, their life expectancy is measured in
weeks.  Experienced users may also have a list of design defects in
your interface, sometimes because you have botched the interface,
sometimes because they have better vision than you did, and sometimes
because they are using your program to do things that you never do --
what is a problem for them never came up for you.  But it is extremely
rare for them to have the same list of changes as the naive (and an
indication that user interface design may not be what you have any
talent for).  In test after test where we established a user community
of experienced users and then announced that we were going to change
the interface in response to complaints that the interface was hard to
learn we got enormous protests (which we of course saved, that being
the point of this) of the form `when I was learning this, I thought
that XXX sucked too, but now I can't live without it.'

There are some things you cannot teach the technically unsavvy.  For
instance, in 20 years I have never, ever, ever, been able to convince
people that floating point, despite looking like decimal fractions,
ISNT, and that you MUST NEVER USE IT FOR MONEY.  The damn fools listen
politely and then go back to using it, because, after all, they think
they know better than you do.  Moth to the flame.  But I have worked
with 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds, secretaries, hairdressers, and
supermarket-check-out clerks, the most non-technical people we could
hope to find since we advertized for them.  And after they get some
familiarity with vi, I can teach nearly all of them how to use regular
expressions.  And just like the technically savvy, they think that
regular expressions are wonderful.

Laura

Re: [9fans] architectures

[forsyth]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 112 bytes --]

actually, my mother was one of the people i
i mentioned earlier, to whom
i showed acme who liked it as-is.


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To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] architectures
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 13:15:48 +0200
Message-ID: <20010712110130.89EB3199C0@mail.cse.psu.edu>

:  As I think you might be suggesting, one way to solve
:  this is to have an interface that a user can customise
:  based on their usage patterns without changing the
:  underlying UI processing engine.

My suggestion was to build a different interface,
just for my mother, which I could use instead of
the conventional one. Not to change the interface
to behave as one or another depending on my taste.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[rob pike]

> contrary to Tog's advice on this point: with care i suspect
> you can make abstractions simple and effective enough without insisting on
> drawing a tenuous likeness to something in the `real world'.

This is a very deep point.  One of the greatest mistakes (or missed opportunities,
or strokes of genius, depending on how you look at it) of the familiar modern
computer interface is the attempt to tie it to real-world objects.  Trash cans,
desktops, paper clips: come on!  The power of computation lies in its being
abstract, and the drive should be to find ways of working that are not mere
echoes of traditional methods.

-rob

Re: [9fans] architectures

[nemo]

:  As I think you might be suggesting, one way to solve
:  this is to have an interface that a user can customise
:  based on their usage patterns without changing the
:  underlying UI processing engine.

My suggestion was to build a different interface,
just for my mother, which I could use instead of
the conventional one. Not to change the interface
to behave as one or another depending on my taste.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[nemo]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 198 bytes --]

I may be missing something, but wouldn't it be
just a matter of adding a different user interface?

Admin is a different thing, but the servers could
be administered by a different person...


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From: Christopher Nielsen <cnielsen@pobox.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] architectures
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 02:59:37 -0700
Message-ID: <20010712025937.J78865@cassie.foobarbaz.net>

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 03:16:57PM +0900, okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> There are people and people who are using 'computers' now.  This may be
> false for many of such peoples, at least, some of them would be better to
> use such tools as "keitai" in Japan which has very limited buttons and even
> lacking keyboard.  It means that a kind of computer, road off from the main
> /real meaning of itself, will be neccessary to appear which does not look
> like 'computer' and very very limited usage for some particular purpose.
> Hmm, can we call it 'computer'?  :-)

I'm speculating on this, but I think it's where
we're going.

Computers are going to become more and more like
appliances; they will be in everything. Our greatest
hurdle is usability. Plan9 goes a long  way in the
realm of usability, but it's geared towards
programmers. You can't effectively make a system
that is usable for everyone; my mom couldn't use
Plan9. We need to consider that there are going to
be models of usability that cater to specific types
of usage/people. Not all users of computers are
programmers, nor should they be.

Don't get me wrong. As a geek, I love Plan9.

--
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is
insufficiently advanced." --unknown

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Christopher Nielsen]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 12:30:06PM +0200, nemo@gsyc.escet.urjc.es wrote:

> I may be missing something, but wouldn't it be
> just a matter of adding a different user interface?

Possibly...

> Admin is a different thing, but the servers could
> be administered by a different person...

I'm not talking about admins here. A programmer
uses a different set of tools and thus, potentially,
a different interface. If you compare the tools
that a person doing word processing might use and
compare that to what a programmer uses, you'll
find that they have different requirements. They
have different user patterns.

As I think you might be suggesting, one way to solve
this is to have an interface that a user can customise
based on their usage patterns without changing the
underlying UI processing engine.

Maybe I haven't spent enough time with Acme and this
is already possible, but my perception is that the
Plan9 interface is geared toward programming.

--
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is
insufficiently advanced." --unknown

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

> as an unrelated point, what do people think of multi-button
> mice as interface components for non-computer-savvy
> folks?

you don't need to be computer savy to use your fingers.
that gets wired into the cerebellum pretty early on :)

i think the problem is that people with 'right click syndrome'
are suffering from bad design on µsloth's part because the
right button did _nothing_ for so long and then they screwed
it up in some contexts:

    click the right button on the desktop -- nothing happens.
    release it and something happens.  just like a knife that
    makes the cut after you've finished cutting.  totally
    counterintuitive.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Christopher Nielsen]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 03:16:57PM +0900, okamoto@granite.cias.osakafu-u.ac.jp wrote:
> There are people and people who are using 'computers' now.  This may be
> false for many of such peoples, at least, some of them would be better to
> use such tools as "keitai" in Japan which has very limited buttons and even
> lacking keyboard.  It means that a kind of computer, road off from the main
> /real meaning of itself, will be neccessary to appear which does not look
> like 'computer' and very very limited usage for some particular purpose.
> Hmm, can we call it 'computer'?  :-)

I'm speculating on this, but I think it's where
we're going.

Computers are going to become more and more like
appliances; they will be in everything. Our greatest
hurdle is usability. Plan9 goes a long  way in the
realm of usability, but it's geared towards
programmers. You can't effectively make a system
that is usable for everyone; my mom couldn't use
Plan9. We need to consider that there are going to
be models of usability that cater to specific types
of usage/people. Not all users of computers are
programmers, nor should they be.

Don't get me wrong. As a geek, I love Plan9.

--
Christopher Nielsen - Metal-wielding pyro techie
cnielsen@pobox.com
"Any technology indistinguishable from magic is
insufficiently advanced." --unknown

Re: [9fans] architectures

[forsyth]

>>i'm particularly fond of the acme interface, and i really
>>like the chording (okay, maybe it's not for everyone, but _i_
>>really like it). i'm asking about non-techie folks. for them,
>>wouldn't a single-button interface be simpler to understand?

not necessarily, since the functionality of the extra buttons
must be provided somehow, whether by menus, pop-up menus,
key-mouse combinations, keys alone, or some other way.  much might
depend on the choice of conventions for using more than one button.
that in acme all three buttons select text is a big simplification.
i usually introduce it as follows: ``button 1 selects text, button 2
selects text, and button 3 ...'' and during the following pause
nearly everyone says ``selects text?''.  i then explain
that `of course' each button does different things with
the text selected.  that seems fine.  the chording for cut/paste/copy
takes a little practice, but since it has a `feel' much like grabbing
text from the screen, that also seems fine.   outside acme,
the Blit convention (perhaps adopted from Smalltalk, i don't know)
was something like: button 1 generally selected things, button 2 provided local
operations (usually on the thing selected), and button 3 provided global operations
for the application, with a few exceptions such as paint programs.
most menus were kept fairly small.

i know at least one non- technical user of acme who sends and receives
mail, plumbing photos and other things, and editing quite happily.
other non-technical people i've shown it to wanted to use acme on
their machines for document preparation and email because the
organisation into columns and frames and the use of the buttons was
just so much more effective than their `desktop' or a clutter of
windows.  (they also like the soft use of colour.)
contrary to Tog's advice on this point: with care i suspect
you can make abstractions simple and effective enough without insisting on
drawing a tenuous likeness to something in the `real world'.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Matt]

> when i supported business-type users, particularly
> such people on Win32 boxes, having them do anything with
> any button other than the left was usually a failure. many
> times i'd say "right click" and have them ignore the first
> word. i'd repeat "no, _right_ click". the response would
> usually be "i did" and they'd repeat exactly what they'd just
> done. again, incorrectly.

give 'em a big red button and no keyboard or screen

tell 'em press this button when you here a beep

Re: [9fans] architectures

[pac]

>> >such people on Win32 boxes, having them do anything with
>> >any button other than the left was usually a failure.
>>
[snip]

>> Plan 9 is not for such 'many' people, I suppose.  ^_^  AND COMPUTER is
>> still neccessary for some people in this real world.
>>

Nice to hear that! Thanks for these words.

Peter.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Sape Mullender]

>>>I would think that people on this list would all agree that the Intel
>>>IA32 is the canonical example of bad design.
>You have obviously never seen IA64.
>IA32 is still canonical bad design.  IA64 is (bad design)⁲.

If bad designs were canonical, that wouldn't be so bad ...

	Sape

Re: [9fans] architectures

[okamoto]

>such people on Win32 boxes, having them do anything with
>any button other than the left was usually a failure.

There are people and people who are using 'computers' now.  This may be
false for many of such peoples, at least, some of them would be better to
use such tools as "keitai" in Japan which has very limited buttons and even
lacking keyboard.  It means that a kind of computer, road off from the main
/real meaning of itself, will be neccessary to appear which does not look
like 'computer' and very very limited usage for some particular purpose.
Hmm, can we call it 'computer'?  :-)

Plan 9 is not for such 'many' people, I suppose.  ^_^  AND COMPUTER is
still neccessary for some people in this real world.

Kenji

Re: [9fans] architectures

[anothy]

//err, mouse buttons?

okay, so USB would be needed to make Plan 9 on a Mac really
enjoyable. but heck, since i'm waiting on USB anyway...

as an unrelated point, what do people think of multi-button
mice as interface components for non-computer-savvy
folks? when i supported business-type users, particularly
such people on Win32 boxes, having them do anything with
any button other than the left was usually a failure. many
times i'd say "right click" and have them ignore the first
word. i'd repeat "no, _right_ click". the response would
usually be "i did" and they'd repeat exactly what they'd just
done. again, incorrectly.

don't get me wrong, i love the three button mouse interface
myself, given an inteligent use of the buttons (like Plan 9
has). i'm particularly fond of the acme interface, and i really
like the chording (okay, maybe it's not for everyone, but _i_
really like it). i'm asking about non-techie folks. for them,
wouldn't a single-button interface be simpler to understand?

oh, and for the moment, ignore design-specific issues. i
understand that one can design both stupid and inteligent
interfaces with _any_ number of buttons. i'm interested in
the question's more abstract form.
-α.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Jonathan Sergent]

>From: <anothy@cosym.net>
>> i'd _love_ to see Plan 9 running on Macs.
>
>err, mouse buttons?

Mine has three.  Any USB mouse (or keyboard for that matter) works fine.
You don't have to use theirs if you don't want to.

I think some of the device drivers would get pretty icky; some of the
peripherals are just as bad as on the PC.  You don't want to know about
the floppy controllers (thankfully they don't do floppies any more).
On the other hand, the source for Apple's drivers is available.  If I
had time...

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Boyd Roberts]

From: <anothy@cosym.net>
> i'd _love_ to see Plan 9 running on Macs.

err, mouse buttons?

Re: [9fans] architectures

[David Gordon Hogan]

>>I would think that people on this list would all agree that the Intel
>>IA32 is the canonical example of bad design.
>
>You have obviously never seen IA64.

IA32 is still canonical bad design.  IA64 is (bad design)⁲.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Mike Haertel]

>I would think that people on this list would all agree that the Intel
>IA32 is the canonical example of bad design.

You have obviously never seen IA64.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Mike Haertel]

>I think Geoff's point about using an iPAQ as a cpu server is a good one.
>You should be able to sit down almost anywhere, connect your iPAQ to the
>local network, and then use it via drawterm.  Any PC or Mac could act as
>a terminal.

Oddly enough, I'm doing just that with my regular laptop.  I have
it set up as a hybrid terminal/cpu-server/auth-server, and I take
it to work with me every day where it just sits in the corner of
my office.  I use drawterm on my desktop box at work to get at it
from a big screen.  It's very convenient to mix Plan 9, Windows,
and X all on the same screen.

I've toyed with the idea of setting up the CPU server under VMware,
accessed by drawterm.  Then I wouldn't need the laptop.  That ought
to be easier than the general problem of getting Plan 9 to work under
VMware, because you wouldn't have to worry about virtual vga hell.
But I haven't gotten around too it yet; the laptop approach isn't
yet inconvenient enough to make me want something better...

Re: [9fans] architectures

[jmk]

On Wed Jul 11 11:03:23 EDT 2001, matt@proweb.co.uk wrote:
> bit of a waste of the screen
>
> what about something like this:
>
> http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2683549967.html
>

We have built a little box like that with a PowerPC in it and 2 Ethernet
ports which runs Plan 9 and is used in various VPN applications. Parts cost
is under $100.

The problem with all these devices is that they almost have the ports you
want but not quite and their inflexibility limits the new applications you
can apply them to. Although it's based on the same old x86 stuff we love
to hate, something like the Shuttle FV24 motherboard (about 7inches square)
with a >600MHz processor or and 256MB memory would cost <$250 (without case
or power supply) and give you all the I/O you want plus 1 PCI slot for
the stuff you hadn't thought of yet.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[jmk]

On Wed Jul 11 11:04:18 EDT 2001, nemo@gsyc.escet.urjc.es wrote:
> Besides, w/ a 2G pcmcia disk, I think you could use your ipaq
> as a lifevest, I mean, both as your cpu server and as your file server.
> Just in case you get disconnected from your site but  still
> able to use a spare terminal connected to the ipaq.
>
> In fact, I was going to buy today one  of those 2G pcmcia disks
> from toshiba, to try to get it working on the bitsy.
>

I recently did some work to make PCMCIA ATA drives work, although I've
not integrated it back into the main source as we've been thinking about
how to do the whole add-in device stuff better.

Devices I've tried are various CompactFlash/SmartMedia cards amd the Iomega
Clik! drive.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[nemo]

Besides, w/ a 2G pcmcia disk, I think you could use your ipaq
as a lifevest, I mean, both as your cpu server and as your file server.
Just in case you get disconnected from your site but  still
able to use a spare terminal connected to the ipaq.

In fact, I was going to buy today one  of those 2G pcmcia disks
from toshiba, to try to get it working on the bitsy.

Re: [9fans] architectures

[bwc]

I would think that people on this list would all agree that the Intel
IA32 is the canonical example of bad design.  I have long pined for
hardware with ANY SORT of decent architecture.  At one point I even
tossed all my Intel books!  While I can find other processors
here and there, I have reached the conclusion that I'm stuck with
Intel for the foreseeable future.

I write software that I put on hardware to do something useful
for my customers.  I am obligated by conscience to provide the
fastest and least expensive hardware to my customers as I can
find.  I have no other choice but use Intel stuff.  It is
very fast, very cheap and very reliable.  Special purpose
hardware excluded, nothing else comes even close.

So, with a heavy heart, I resigned myself to embracing this nasty
architecture for the sake of my customers, who, thank heavens,
has no knowledge of the awful mess that lies beneath.

Fortunately, information on Intel motherboards has become
more open, and more developers are using Intel hardware
as platforms for doing things other than Windows.  I developed
two products that are now sold by Cisco Systems using off
the shelf Intel stuff: PIX Firewall and LocalDirector.
These products still use Intel Motherboards because it wouldn't
pay Cisco to redesign any of them.

  Brantley Coile

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Matt]

bit of a waste of the screen

what about something like this:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT2683549967.html

Re: [9fans] architectures

[Theo Honohan]

anothy@cosym.net wrote ("[9fans] architectures"):
>
> geoff, while the iPAQ is very nice, it's pretty clearly not a suitable
> terminal for doing _real_ work (although it's a pretty cool mp3
> player and is okay for email when walking around the house).


but Geoff had said

geoff@collyer.net wrote ("Re: [9fans] General question about hosted interfaces"):
>
> I'm skeptical about the bitsy's suitability as a terminal, but it
> might make a fine CPU server since it's got what matters: a reasonable
> CPU, a lump of RAM and an optional PCMCIA network card (Wavelan
> currently).

[...]

I think Geoff's point about using an iPAQ as a cpu server is a good one.
You should be able to sit down almost anywhere, connect your iPAQ to the
local network, and then use it via drawterm.  Any PC or Mac could act as
a terminal.

[9fans] architectures

[anothy]

geoff, while the iPAQ is very nice, it's pretty clearly not a suitable
terminal for doing _real_ work (although it's a pretty cool mp3
player and is okay for email when walking around the house). but
i entirely agree with your observation that the PC architecture is
such a mess becuase it's not been controlled. before anyone
jumps all over that, i concede that this state of affairs has had
positive effects, as well, particularly in the price/performance
ratio. but it has led to the situation geoff is bemoaning. so, what
to do about it?

personally, for a non-intel based architecture, controlled by
people who seem to have at least a clue, and suitable for both
terminal and CPU server use, i'd _love_ to see Plan 9 running on
Macs. the iMacs remind me of X-terminals, which, back when i
ran unix boxes, made my life _so_ much simpler. and the higher
end Macs have _really_ nice performance numbers. they also
now build on many of the things the PC industry has done (more
or less) right, such as PCI.

oh, and OS X looks to be the only OS i've found that's both at
least mildly intruiging and _not_ sold by Vita Nuova. while i've
not yet run out and bought a newish Mac because it doesn't run
Plan 9, and OS X isn't good enough to act as a replacement for
me, i'll admit to being interested in dual-booting the two.

oh, and the G4 cubes are just really _pretty_.
-α.