Apple IIe Design Guidelines (1982) [pdf]
apple2scans.net
apple2scans.net
"To load a program named AGATHA, use the command LOAD AGATHA and the program of that name, if there is one in the catalog, will be loaded. To test if AGATHA is loaded, see if it can walk along a straight line."
The screenshots are from a later version called 'The Applesoft Tutorial', revised by Caryl Richardson. That version has no author credits.
IMHO Microsoft has gone from the best UI to a horrible UI. No way of visually discerning what is a button or other GUI component and what isn't is not a improvement! The revolt due to their absurd VS GUI a while back is a great example, but it's the subtle UI changes in their current offerings that are most frustrating.
I switched to linux a while ago, and it has a long way to go ... but its an upward curve vs. Apple/MS's downward spiral when it comes to UI.
It's upward because it's trying to catch up with Windows and macOS...
As much as I would love to love Linux, besides elementary OS the trend is still to ignore looks and concentrate on code. Some apps are so poorly thought out in terms of UI that they're almost impossible to use.
Considering most of those apps probably are open source why don't you help out and improve them?
The class of people qualified to contribute to open source Linux utilities is a subset of Linux users.
You'd be surprised. My sister uses Ubuntu (no idea how she got the idea), and she's in a totally different field.
> Considering that you're getting thousands of man months for free by using the kernel and open source tools I would imagine you pitching in to help with a little bit of your time.
People release open source projects for different reasons.
I don't think it should be required physically or ethically to have to pitch in to help, even if one was capable of.
Fixing other people's code in a disk partitioner or text editor is not what I'm passionate about nor what I want to spend time on. Then, I'd rather pay (as I do) for Sublime Text and start working on things that I care about already (on macOS—which I definitely pay for).
While I can tell that something is a pain to use, I'm not a designer, and I don't know how to fix it. Kind of when your car makes a noise or breaks down and you're not a mechanic.
I can't technically because I don't program for the desktop, and I don't have the time nor energy, and prefer/have to pay people to do it for me.
I have to tell you, I love how whenever someone criticizes Linux there's a comment saying "it's open source, fix it yourself". I think this is exactly the problem and attitude that plagues most Linux distros.
Criticizing is helping.
So the thing -dozens of ICs inside- overheated so much to the point of failure. This was already warned by their (capable, well respected) designer Wendell Sanders, but Jobs, being Jobs, wanted things his way.
Full story must be in folklore.org.
Color really wasn't something you could assume people had. late 80's is roughly when color started to be 'normal' (mostly driven by the IBM PC shipping with CGA since launch in '91) and people looked at you strangely if you still had monochrome.
And even then, if you wanted high resolution chances were that you'd be looking at a monochrome display.
Yeah, it wasn't so much that the color monitors were expensive, but that they were terrible. I always kept my Monitor /// even when co-workers had color displays.
The RGB monitors on the IIGS were great, though.
The PC was launched in 81, and the default display was monochrome text; 91 might have been the PS/2 with MCGA.
Or maybe you meant to refer to the PCjr, which was bundled with a color display (better than CGA, IIRC) at launch. That was, IIRC, 1983.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter
Seems to confirm it was available from the launch date and I distinctly remember a job for a company in Edam that had an early PC which had color graphics as well as one at a bank in Amsterdam that also did color (at very low resolution, but definitely color).
By '91 we were well into 486's and high res color (but not using IBM cards, but VGA wonder and the various Tseng cards were doing just fine).
I don't want to use software that's designed for people who are too oblivious to know if they're using a color display, or designed by programmers who try everything besides asking the simple question, "Are you using a color display? Y/N"
Also, as soon as participants start screwing with the process by lying to the program and/or the investigators, there is no longer any great likelihood that ordinary users will benefit.
The correct solution is, of course, to design the program to look good on both color and monochrome displays, like almost everyone who ever developed games for the Apple II had to do. It was difficult to pull this off due to the interaction of the display hardware with archaic TV color standards, but it was part of the job.
The program should require cognizant confirmation:
Are you sure you want to destroy 5 days' work? Type DESTROY 5 DAYS' WORK to confirm.