🚀 go-pugleaf

Dan Strychalski wrote:

> Like Jobs, Gates wanted his customers conditioned to using keystrokes
> available only on systems he profited from. Ctrl being common to all
> machines, he didn't want people using it.

[snip]

> (This had the added benefit of ensuring that people would detest using
> the keyboard and be ripe for Windows. I know a whole lotta people who

I think Mr. Gates was not too impressed by GUI's. Development was slow
and halfhearted. Did anyone even see Microsoft's attempt in bringing GUI
style file management to a character based interface? It was sold with
the Zenith Easy-PC, an XT. Think it was bundled with DOS 3.2 or 3.3. The
interface really suck. Select file to copy with mouse, type destination
path from memory.

The editor to build the interface was nice though. Looked a bit like the
GEM resource editor, but carachter based.

> love, and I mean l-o-v-e LOVE WordStar, vi, or Emacs keystrokes and can
> use them for everything all day every day. When was the last time you
> heard anyone rave about WordPerfect, Word for MS/PC DOS, or MultiMate
> [or, for that matter, Macintosh, or Windows, or CUA] command keystrokes?

The Mac's are consistent and quick at least.

> Considering how many more people have used these programs by now, isn't
> that just a little bit strange?)
> 
> Ctrl-Z/X/C/V for Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste did not exist in the x86 world
> until IBM moved Ctrl out of the home row and Microsoft started moving
> its Mac applications to Windows. Through version 2.03, the applications
> bundled with Windows used Del for Cut, Ins for Paste, and F2 for Copy.
> Alt worked as it does today, and Ctrl sat there dead as a doornail.

This Alt-your-way-through-the-menus must be the worst UI invention ever
IMO. 
Oh boy was I surprised to see a key previously used as modifier-only
suddenly to have a action if pressed on its own.

> To say he stole the Z/X/C/V suite from Apple is
> exactly right.

Probably. Beats Shift-Insert (or Alt - E - P [or whatever language
program you are working in]) any time.

Apple later came with extended keyboards with undo/cut/copy/paste
symbols printed near the F1 through F4 keys.

Thomas