From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Reynolds@AMES-67@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.works Title: Re: End User Interface ala Augment/NLS Article-I.D.: sri-unix.2234 Posted: Thu Jul 22 04:10:27 1982 Received: Sun Jul 25 10:54:42 1982 In Reply To: WorkS Digest, V2, I64 Message from Jake Feinler Yes Indeed, I agree... Although I have never used AUGMENT/NLS, I did borrow the ISIS film from Doug Englebart a few years ago and was impressed with the power of NLS. The film does misslead one though, into assuming that you have to learn to deal with all the complexity of NLS just to get started, when only a subset is needed. We have had the same effect here bringing up our interactive users on TSS, a powerful but somewhat user unfriendly system. One has to spend some careful thinking in the TSS case in developing a beginning subset of system commands so as not to overwhelm the user. Another feature (problem?) of TSS is that users can define their own system commands (one letter commands if they wish), as a combination of existing system commands with desired parameters, or merely rename system commands according to their desires. This feature makes command completion really difficult to implement. What makes it impossible is the IBM penchant for half-duplex data communications to ASCII start-stop, asynchronous terminals. Logging on TSS over the net requires one to set the TIP to "transmit-on-linefeed". If one only uses locally connected IBM 3270 (full screen CRT) terminals one can live with a fairly crude editor, and the user interface is tolerable. Updating a full screen at a time at channel rates kind of spoils a person, I suppose. Maybe this topic belongs on HUMAN-NETS, but I'm interested in inputs on user interfaces. Let's keep them coming. Best, Don Reynolds (415) 965-6444 (Reynolds at Ames-67) ------