3 ms·

Diagnostic Port (2004)

19 points by duncan_bayne 10y ago

djaychela 10y ago
Certainly seems somewhat prophetic of the situation I've always thought was the case at Apple - the "you don't need to see this" mentality, that users should just accept that it works and that's that. I appreciate that suits some people (and indeed most of the kids I teach at one of the schools have Macs and love them), but I'm not sure it's good, long term; the level of knowledge of how computers work at even the most simplistic level seems to be disappearing amongst the majority of those I teach, and I don't think that's an empowering situation. I wonder how this was all squared with the introduction of USB on the iMac? It appeared to me that the wider adoption of USB happened in part because of it being included on the original iMac series (it may just have taken that long to get traction as most technologies seem to need a while, particularly if there is an alternative as there was on PCs with parallel and PS/2 ports), and USB has been a huge boon in terms of connectivity for most people. I wonder if there was any similar push for no USB, or a proprietary Apple connection (a la ADB) - anyone know?
OJFord 10y ago
My first thought was that this was about swigging fortified wine to possibly aid (and therefore diagnose) ailing health...
rz2k 10y ago
The comment section is probably even more interesting. Specifically, that Jef Raskin was talking about there being a complete product, where for instance you plug in a printer rather than buying a printer and an interface for the printer, rather than opposing expandability. Other words that might get at the same point: the "Design Considerations for an Anthropophilic Computer" document [1] describes a structuring of components that does not favor people who enjoy tinkering over those who don't. [1] http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/bom/anthrophilic.html http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/bom/...
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  The problem is that "tinkering" is what computers are for. They are only peripherally useful for entertainment or drone work, the latter of which they wind up being used to automate away anyway.
yuhong 10y ago
Ah, the era where 64K and 256K DRAM prices fell ten fold in a year (from 1984 to 1985). Micron suffered years of losses until just before the DRAM shortage in 1988.

19 points by duncan_bayne 10y ago

Certainly seems somewhat prophetic of the situation I've always thought was the case at Apple - the "you don't need to see this" mentality, that users should just accept that it works and that's that. I appreciate that suits some people (and indeed most of the kids I teach at one of the schools have Macs and love them), but I'm not sure it's good, long term; the level of knowledge of how computers work at even the most simplistic level seems to be disappearing amongst the majority of those I teach, and I don't think that's an empowering situation. I wonder how this was all squared with the introduction of USB on the iMac? It appeared to me that the wider adoption of USB happened in part because of it being included on the original iMac series (it may just have taken that long to get traction as most technologies seem to need a while, particularly if there is an alternative as there was on PCs with parallel and PS/2 ports), and USB has been a huge boon in terms of connectivity for most people. I wonder if there was any similar push for no USB, or a proprietary Apple connection (a la ADB) - anyone know?

OJFord 10y ago

My first thought was that this was about swigging fortified wine to possibly aid (and therefore diagnose) ailing health...

rz2k 10y ago

The comment section is probably even more interesting. Specifically, that Jef Raskin was talking about there being a complete product, where for instance you plug in a printer rather than buying a printer and an interface for the printer, rather than opposing expandability. Other words that might get at the same point: the "Design Considerations for an Anthropophilic Computer" document [1] describes a structuring of components that does not favor people who enjoy tinkering over those who don't. [1] http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/bom/anthrophilic.html http://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/docs/bom/...

duncan_bayne 10y ago
The problem is that "tinkering" is what computers are for. They are only peripherally useful for entertainment or drone work, the latter of which they wind up being used to automate away anyway.

yuhong 10y ago

Ah, the era where 64K and 256K DRAM prices fell ten fold in a year (from 1984 to 1985). Micron suffered years of losses until just before the DRAM shortage in 1988.