Re: Apple and the Holy War

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <39230b7f.16245318@news>,
Jeff Blakeney <CUTblakeney@home.com> wrote:
 
> I knew it was a mistake to reply to that message but I made my bed so
> I guess I have to lay in it.
> 
> On 17 May 2000 13:00:56 +0200, pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)
> wrote:
> 
>> I don't think so!
>>  
>> You're not even aware of most of the computers in your home -- you
>> probably have at least a dozen of them.  They're embedded in your
>> refrigerator, your stove, your dishwasher, your TV, your VCR, your
>> telephone, your elevator, and maybe in many other places too.  Do
>> all these embedded computers have a GUI?  No!  Are you going to throw
>> them out just because of that?  I don't think you will....
> 
> I could have sworn we were talking about PERSONAL computers and not
> embedded systems or dedicated hardware.  However, if I made an
> incorrect assumption, I apologize.
> 
> By the way, all the items you mention about may not have GUIs but
> they don't have CLIs either.
 
Some of them do: they have a pin or two used for testing purposes,
and you talk to the device via a CLI.  My GPS receiver, for instance,
has a connector which outputs information in NMEA format: this is an
ASCII format, with linefeed/carriageReturn and all -- and this from a
device not perceived as a "computer" by most people.  This is a form
of a CLI.
 
> In fact, most of them don't even have computers in them.  They are
> electronics devices but they certainly aren't computers.
 
Embedded controllers are getting cheaper all the time, so most such
modern devices do in fact have computers in them.  They may even have
several.  New cars have a dozen or so computers in them.  Modern
trains have hundreds of computers (with the probable exception of
those steam engines which China still manufactures :-)
 
> Oh, and I'm quite aware of the technology that is all around me.  I'm
> an Electronics Technologist (well, not technically as I never did get
> my diploma because of three missed credits; one failed course, one
> missed co-op work term and not finishing my final technical report)
> and I've been a computer programmer for almost 19 years.
 
Then you ought to realize that embedded computers are nowadays
almost everywhere.
 
>> Even what you think of as "one computer" is most likely half-a-dozen
>> computers (assuming you have a modern computer, such as a Pentium II
>> or III, or a PowerMac -- or perhaps even a SparcStation?): the
>> keyboard has its own embedded computer controlling it,
> 
> That isn't a computer.  It is a piece of hardware that watches what
> key switches are pressed, converts that into a binary code and sends
> the code out the cable serially.
 
Is this logic hardwired, or is there a CPU executing instructions
stored in a ROM?  If the latter, then it's a computer.
 
> The chip that does this in PC keyboards is called an encoder.
 
Yes, and most of these decoders do have embedded microcontrollers
rather than 100% hardwired logic -- that makes them computers,
since they have a COU executing instructions.
 
> There is a corresponding decoder on your motherboard to turn that
> serial signal back into a binary code so that the processor can deal
> with it.
> 
>> the disk controller card has one,
> 
> Again just a piece of hardware that simply converts signals between
> disk drives and a processor.
 
There is more intelligence than you seem to be aware of in modern
harddisks.  Ever wondered why modern harddisks almost always appear
to be error-free, with no bad sectors?  Well, the bad sectors
are there, but the intelligence within the harddisk remaps them
to other, good, areas of the harddisk.  This is too complex
to do with hardwired logic, so it's done with embedded microcontrollers
instead.
 
Or did you ever wonder why an 8 GB harddrive appears to have 255
heads to the PC?  It doesn't *really* have that many heads, instead
these logical heads are remapped to physical heads within the HD,
again by microcontorller software.
 
>> each harddisk has one (which, among other things, shuffles around
>> logical sectors and hides bad sectors, to give the illusion of a
>> disk with no bad sectors),
> 
> Again just a piece of hardware that simply converts signals between
> the drive heads and a disk controller.
 
There's more than that to modern harddisks ... see above.
 
>> your modem has one,
> 
> Again just a piece of hardware the simply converts signals between the
> phone line and a serial port.
 
OK, perhaps you're running an old 300 or 1200 bps modem, but moderm
high-speed modems are considerably more complex than that.  They
could never accomplish their magic by hardwired logic only -- they
use several DSP's (Digital Signal Processors), which are controlled
by a main processor within the modem.  In one brand of modems I'm
particularly acquainted with (Interex), they even use a 6502
descendant to do that!  That "6502" runs at some 16 MHz and can
therefore perform much better than the 1 Mhz 6502 in the good ol'
Apple II -- yet it's facinating to think that the kind of CPU in my
good ol' Apple II, where I first learnt to program seriously, is
nowadays used in peripherals such as modems!!!!
 
>> your video display has one ... et cetera et cetera.
> 
> Some displays might have processors in them for doing on screen menus
> for adjustments (brightness, contrast, etc) but none of the monitors I
> own do.  However, most monitors are just a piece of hardware that
> simply converts signals between the video card and the display
> (usually a cathode ray tube).
 
If all you say is true, you must be using quite outdated equipment.
 
>> Do all these computers have a GUI of their own?  No!
> 
> Neither do they have a CLI and as I've pointed out,
 
Some of them do -- for instance my GPS receiver.  And the AT command
strings sent back and forth between a modem and a desktop computer,
what are they if not a form of CLI ?
 
> most of these aren't actually computers.
 
> In the case of monitors with on screen menus, that is a GUI and not
> a CLI.
 
True: if you have a CRT available anyway, you might as well use it
for a GUI, right?  Therefore modern computer monitors have that, as
well as modern TV's, modern VCR's and modern satellite receivers.
 
But most embedded systems don't have access to a CRT.  If they need some
interface to the outside world, a CLI makes more sense than a GUI.
 
>> Most computers in the home aren't those all-purpose desktop computers
>> we're working and playing with -- it's all those specialized embedded
>> computers we're often not even aware of.  And they run fine without GUI's.
> 
> Again, I didn't think we were talking about embedded systems or
> dedicated hardware and even if we were those devices run fine without
> a CLI either.
 
How do you use your modem if you cannot send AT command strings to it?
Yes, you can dial manually (and you have to do that if your modem is
really old, i.e. pre-Hayes style).
 
>> My Apple II+ has no GUI, and I still use it occasionally -- admittedly
>> mostly for nostalgic reasons...
> 
> I sometimes use a command line when it is more convenient to do so but
> most of the time I use the GUI environment on pretty much all the
> computers I use regularly.  I also use a CLI if I don't have a choice.
 
The CLI offers another advantage: portability.  I can quite easily
write a CLI program where the same code compiles, and runs, both
on a PC and on a UNIX machine -- as well as on any other machine
which can compile Standard C (or whatever language you are using).
You cannot do that with a GUI.  Of course this is of little relevance
to someone who never use more than one platform and who never write
his own programs though.
 
>> Both should be available in a desktop computer, to give the user a
>> choice.  As I said above: "the total absence of a CLI, such as on the
>> Macintosh, is an obstacle".  Since it doesn't take much to implement
>> at least a rudimentary CLI, Apple must have left it out of the Mac not
>> for practical but for ideological reasons -- and we've already read
>> about holy wars at Apple... :)
> 
> I have lost count of the number of users that I have met that have no
> idea what the Windows's MS-DOS prompt is, what is does or how to use
> it.  They have the option to use it but they never do.
 
And they are helpless if there is some serious problem with their
computer.  But you're right: CLI skills is a dying art.
 
> Most people simply have no need or desire to use a CLI.  This is why
> computers didn't start getting popular until we had GUI interfaces
> that were easy for the average person to use.
> 
>> Of course the total absence of a GUI can be an obstacle too, but it's
>> more a convenience than a genuine ability that's lacking (with the
>> obvious exception of heavily graphics-oriented software of course,
>> such as DTP software).
> 
> I could live quite happily without a GUI.  It can be convenient at
> times but it definitely isn't a necessity and I can accomplish the
> same things using a GUI although it may take a few seconds longer.
 
That should read "I could live quite happily without a CLI" ???
 
How do you connect to the Internet?  Probably via a modem.  How would
you do that if the modem lacked that CLI fo AT command strings?
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Finally: even the desktop general-purpose computer can in a way be
considered an "embedded system".  We've discussed a lot about how the
"average user" uses his computer, and word processing seems to be the
most common such usage.  Which makes the general-purpose desktop
computer a kind "electronic typewriter".  It shares several
properties of the typewriter: the keyboard, and somewhere where the
typed text appears, in WYSIWYG format (paper on a mechanical
typewriter, the CRT on the "electronic typewriter").  In a way, the
start-up procedure of a modern computer (boot-up sequence, login,
start your application) is just an annoying delay to that "typical
user" who uses his computer for word processing and little else.
Thus there may, in the future, appear dedicated "electronic
typewrites", intended for those who just does word processing on
their computers.
 
And that's probably where the computer is headed for in the mass
consumer market: dedicated devices which the user doesn't think of
as a "computer" but as a device which performs some specific function
(typewriter, internet browser, cellular phone, refrigerator,
washing machine, vacuum cleaner, pocket phone register .... you
name it!).  Form your point of view the "computer" will then have
mostly vanished from homes, while from my point of view there are
more "computers" than ever in the homes -- but they're also more
invisible than ever.
 
And that's really the ultimate in user friendliness: the computer
is there and does something useful, in a way so invisible that the
used doesn't even think of it as a computer!!!!  He's just aware
of a device which is useful in some way.
 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
e-mail:  pausch at saaf dot se   or    paul.schlyter at ausys dot se
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