Jef Raskin über den idealen Computer

2010 hat Steve Jobs den Computer präsentiert, den Jef Raskin 1979 folgendermaßen als „ideal“ beschrieben hat:

You might think that any number of computers have been designed with these criteria in mind, but not so. Any system which requires a user to ever see the interior, for any reason, does not meet these specifications. There must not be additional ROMS, RAMS, boards or accessories except those that can be understood by the PITS as a separate appliance. For example, an auxiliary printer can be sold, but a parallel interface cannot. As a rule of thumb, if an item does not stand on a table by itself, and if it does not have its own case, or if it does not look like a complete consumer item in [and] of itself, then it is taboo.

If the computer must be opened for any reason other than repair (for which our prospective user must be assumed incompetent) even at the dealer’s, then it does not meet our requirements.

Seeing the guts is taboo. Things in sockets is taboo (unless to make servicing cheaper without imposing too large an initial cost). Billions of keys on the keyboard is taboo. Computerese is taboo. Large manuals, or many of them (large manuals are a sure sign of bad design) is taboo. Self- instructional programs are NOT taboo.

iPad? Und, aus dem Beitrag, in dem ich den Verweis auf Jef Raskin gefunden habe: Es ist nicht das iPad ein schlechtes Device, sondern es ist ein Schock über die Radikalität seines Designs.

Fraser Speirs has called the tech community’s negative reaction to the iPad “future shock” […]; but it’s really the shockwave of the past—the radical vision of computing Raskin and Steve Jobs always had—finally catching up to the present.

Dan Cohen

Also doch das Device, das sein soll?