8 ms·

"You can still find antique green-screen systems if you look hard—in some cases, a pleasant Web interface just disguises the old guts." - There is so much wrong

"You can still find antique green-screen systems if you look hard—in some cases, a pleasant Web interface just disguises the old guts." - There is so much wrong with this sentiment! It's just kind of folded in there, the insinuation that "web interfaces are more pleasant" than TUIs. I cannot express how much this kind of writting annoys me. Why can't they tell the story without wedging in unbacked opinions. The sentence "You can still find antique green-screen systems if you look hard—in some cases, a Web interface just disguises the old guts." would work just as well.

bunderbunder 10y ago
I think that you might be very nearly alone in your sentiment that green screens offer as good a user interface as more recent technologies.
- timthelion 10y ago
  Me and three upvotes in however many minutes. Plus all the old ladies at the supermarket who can enter a product code into the terminal without even looking at the screen, because the rules for what element is focused are so simple.
  - laichzeit0 10y ago
    I agree that terminals are more "productive". One of the reasons that the mouse based interfaces gained such traction is that the sales people pitched it as "you can teach someone to use this interface in X amount of time" where X is orders of magnitude less than using a terminal interface. Like saying that Nodepad is quicker to learn than Emacs or Vim. This is true at face value, the trade off is that you pay for it later on as people become productive with it. Alas, cutting down "training time" and the costs involved with this for new employees is something bean counters can measure.
- notalaser 10y ago
  As "more recent technologies", probably not. (At least as good) as the non-native, slowly-responding, glitchy web UIs that are so hip lately, most likely yes, especially when it comes to tasks like data entry and the like.
  - frik 10y ago
    Give me a good responsive web app, mobile Android/iOS app, Win32 app or TUI app over ugly not so responsive XAML Win10 apps or SAP screens.
- dingaling 10y ago
  From talking to the sales & service agents at ${COMPANY} after prototyping some 'New Generation' systems we determined that Web-based UIs had two advantages: 1. Multi-column layout with independent updates. Useful for presenting prompts and help information beside the main transaction window. 2. AJAX-style dynamic updates on data-selection. Other than that there were few advantages to Web UI. In fact we had to spend some time developing Javascript functionality such as tab-order and F-key capture that are elementary, 'free' features with green-screen and which greatly improve transaction speed. Any 5250 terminal emulator from the 1990s onwards offered copy-and-paste and multi-session capabilities so a Web UI didn't offer advantage there.
  - timthelion 10y ago
    On what TUI systems is a multi-column layout not possible? On what TUI systems are dynamic updates not possible? In my experience, teletype or ssh is much better in this regard, as the systems use socket connections which support push, which allows updates to propogate faster and more efficiently than using http (I know, http2 improves this system, as well as websockets, but those are recent arivals and only serve to play catch-up).
- tyingq 10y ago
  I think that depends on what you mean by "good". Being able to complete transactions without taking your fingers off the keyboard is almost always faster. So, if it's an application where the end user spends a lot of time, a green screen can be more efficient. Things like a call center, or the check-in counter at an airport, etc. It does depend on a good text and boxes ui though. Green screens had things like pulldowns, copy/paste, etc.
  - lucb1e 10y ago
    And even if it weren't faster, it's more comfortable. As someone who spends the vast majority of his waking hours behind a screen, I can tell the difference between two days that involved a lot of mousing around and two days typing (I usually get to type most, but there are projects where I can't). I can only imagine what it must feel like if you have to use a web interface to move between pages all the time.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Being able to complete transactions without taking your fingers off the keyboard is almost always faster. Until you get carpal tunnel syndrome.
    - tyingq 10y ago
      Is switching back and forth from a keyboard to a mouse less likely to cause carpal tunnel?
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  Nah. Green screens were great. Stuff today is crap. How does a user interface? For a web site, primarily with a mouse. So, single touch input. For green screen they have an array of dedicated individual simultaneous input devices (known as "keys"). In addition, green screen often provides near-immediate response, whereas touchscreens can suffer from lag either in the physical interface or the unfortunate multiprocess operating system. Finally, green screen was designed to step quickly through the interface, where web requires lots of hunting around for what you want to do. You simply can't interface better with an application than a single process dedicated application using fixed multiple inputs with immediate response. It's like web pages are a cart and horse and green screen is a race car.
  - loudandskittish 10y ago
    The first job I took right out of college (I was kinda out of money and needed a job immediately) was at a polling company. You know, the obnoxious kids who call and say, "If an election were held tomorrow..." Anyway, the place still used green screen terminals in 2006 (Mmm, with mechanical keyboards attached). In most cases, the only input required was a single number for each response, so once I'd memorized a script and the responses, I could get through a survey without looking at either the screen or the terminal. Eventually the company shut down, and needing another job right away, I went to another polling company, who used a web interface for some reason. So there I had to use a vintage mouse (...which obviously did not bring the same joy as a vintage keyboard) to click radio buttons and check boxes and was, frankly, just a painful experience all around. So, yeah, I agree, there are a surprising number of instances where an old terminal UI is significantly better.
- nabla9 10y ago
  Text terminal can provide superior user interface. They can be faster and very logical. When you use them several hours per day and master the system they surpass most modern UI's. Minimal distraction, fast access and less errors. Good modern UI design uses common metaphors that make it easier to learn new systems that are used with mouse if you are familiar with metaphors. They are designed for the beginner. There is nothing that prevents modern UI designer from learning the lessons from old terminals and carefully crafting the application so that experienced users can use different screen layout with fast keyboard navigation. It's just very rare.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    The worst thing about our modern GUIs, IMO, is that they've basically brought UI evolution to a screeching halt. I don't think we've even begun to develop optimal user interfaces, and we won't as long as the "common metaphor" idea holds sway. Think what it would be like if we applied that idea to the real world, so (e.g.) hammers, can openers, toilets, and bulldozers all had to operate using a common set of widgets. It's hard to envision, but I would bet a very large sum of money that the result wouldn't be optimal for any of those jobs. That's what we've done with computer UIs. Unfortunately, I don't see any real way out of the trap.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Unfortunately, I don't see any real way out of the trap. Some new device or application will introduce a new metaphor or technology that eventually trickles into existing software. Unfortunately, last time this happened that new tech was touchscreens, and I fear voice is next. These are both regressions in efficiency for lots of tasks.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Think what it would be like if we applied that idea to the real world, so (e.g.) hammers, can openers, toilets, and bulldozers all had to operate using a common set of widgets. Only apps don't do that. Paint apps use brushes and canvases, spreadsheet apps use cell grids, music apps use notation views and piano rolls, writing apps use document screens, games use whatever invented controls and worlds, etc. What is common is that a lot of stuff we do involves mere text and symbol manipulation (buying tickets, reading news, checking sports scores, entering customer data, etc). For those we use the same widgets, yes. But in the real world we do build all kinds of stuff, from cars to boats, and from skyscrapers to bulldozers, to pinballs with nuts, bolts, screws, wires, glass panels, etc., too. A hammer is as useful for hanging a frame as it is for building a house.
- jwilliams 10y ago
  I've seen it many times, particularly in finance which still has plenty of VT100 applications. The reason is that once you know the codes, you can navigate and enter data at a genuinely incredible rate. If you've ever watched an experienced operator on one of these applications you'd be amazed. For one loan processing application, the terminal was an order of magnitude faster than the Web-based interface that was being deployed. The key here though, is "experienced". This is someone who has developed the knowledge and muscle-memory to operate at that speed. This also makes the system more brittle (and often harder to change). Critically, it also means it takes a lot of training and time for people to be productive. The reason many big organizations dropped the terminals - they wanted to be able to train people quicker, not because it was more productive.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >The key here though, is "experienced". The other key is that those people and those "POS" style apps do very little things -- mostly a single task like e.g. bank accounts management.
    - jwilliams 10y ago
      The example I put in there was loan applications, which are quite complex. Loan origination (especially Business Loans) is perhaps the most complex business process I've ever encountered.
  - sperglord 10y ago
    I call this "the Dwarf Fortress UI paradigm." Yes, it's very fast to someone experienced with it. Yes, the learning curve is incredible. No, it will never change because the stakeholder (ie. the developer) is happy with it.
baddox 10y ago
I think you can hold your fire. Don't you think it is true that in some cases a pleasant web interface disguises the old guts of a legacy system? I see absolutely no insinuation that all web interfaces are more pleasant than TUIs.
Spooky23 10y ago
I'd disagree strongly. The dynamics of a web application are different than a terminal app. You're average web-skinned 3270 app is generally a direct translation of whatever the app did done by a gang of contractors without any design consideration. The problem with that is that for all of the most trivial of apps, the use cases were envisioned 30 years ago. That's usually a problem. For example, one app that I looked at that still had old documentation available. Their design was based around 90% of transactions were initiated by a clerk opening paper mail. The obtuse layout of screens was there because they processed mail to dispatch it to appropriate teams of clerks, and it was customized to each function. Today 90% of transactions are initiated by phone or webchat, and are expected to be resolved in one call. Bad web implementations are common. But it's almost always bad to ape things that aren't understood, which is the case 80% of the time for webified temrinal apps.
- mastazi 10y ago
  > You're average web-skinned 3270 app Am I? (Sorry I couldn't resist)
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Life would be simpler!
coldtea 10y ago
>There is so much wrong with this sentiment! It's just kind of folded in there, the insinuation that "web interfaces are more pleasant" than TUIs. I cannot express how much this kind of writting annoys me. Why can't they tell the story without wedging in unbacked opinions. Not everything needs to backed. It's obvious that most people, at least most lay people, find web UIs better and more friendly than terminal style interfaces... Pleasant is not something objective to be measured comparing TUIs and web UIS -- it's in how people see them, and it's clear that what the article says it true for most people.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
TUIs are great for experienced users, but are terrible for inexperienced users. A good example of where a simple GUI is useful is POS systems. Sure, you could use a TUI, but you'd have to train every 16 year old kid who works for you for 2 weeks over summer, which is going to cost you. On the other hand, I've noticed that airlines still use a terminal emulator for their booking and check in system. They're amazingly fast at using it, most of the commands are 1 or 2 letters. But you're dealing with a smaller group of trained and skilled employees, with a much lower turnover and a much higher overall training requirement. There's probably also legacy reasons why airlines use a TUI, but it seems that the staff never have any issues using it, I've never seen them having to consult a manual.
- eeZah7Ux 10y ago
  > TUIs are great for experienced users, but are terrible for inexperienced users. Usability research proved this to be false again and again but unfortunately text is not showy enough.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    I'd love to see this research. I've wondered about it myself
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    They are probably talking about what TUIs get with replaced with in practice, rather than an optimum replacement GUI.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    TUIs suffer from a lack of discoverability, I have to type in "help" or look up the man page to actually figure out how to do anything. Put me in front of an airline booking system, and I'm going to be completely lost. Put me in front of a computer opened to an airlines website, and I can probably figure out how to order myself some tickets.
    - 10y ago
DrScump 10y ago
Until 2014 (at the earliest, may have extended into 2015), the built-in ticketing kiosks at AT&T Park (San Francisco) ran on Windows NT PCs, with a 1999 copyright date on the boot screen (when it crashed).

bunderbunder 10y ago

I think that you might be very nearly alone in your sentiment that green screens offer as good a user interface as more recent technologies.

timthelion 10y ago
Me and three upvotes in however many minutes. Plus all the old ladies at the supermarket who can enter a product code into the terminal without even looking at the screen, because the rules for what element is focused are so simple.
- laichzeit0 10y ago
  I agree that terminals are more "productive". One of the reasons that the mouse based interfaces gained such traction is that the sales people pitched it as "you can teach someone to use this interface in X amount of time" where X is orders of magnitude less than using a terminal interface. Like saying that Nodepad is quicker to learn than Emacs or Vim. This is true at face value, the trade off is that you pay for it later on as people become productive with it. Alas, cutting down "training time" and the costs involved with this for new employees is something bean counters can measure.
notalaser 10y ago
As "more recent technologies", probably not. (At least as good) as the non-native, slowly-responding, glitchy web UIs that are so hip lately, most likely yes, especially when it comes to tasks like data entry and the like.
- frik 10y ago
  Give me a good responsive web app, mobile Android/iOS app, Win32 app or TUI app over ugly not so responsive XAML Win10 apps or SAP screens.
dingaling 10y ago
From talking to the sales & service agents at ${COMPANY} after prototyping some 'New Generation' systems we determined that Web-based UIs had two advantages: 1. Multi-column layout with independent updates. Useful for presenting prompts and help information beside the main transaction window. 2. AJAX-style dynamic updates on data-selection. Other than that there were few advantages to Web UI. In fact we had to spend some time developing Javascript functionality such as tab-order and F-key capture that are elementary, 'free' features with green-screen and which greatly improve transaction speed. Any 5250 terminal emulator from the 1990s onwards offered copy-and-paste and multi-session capabilities so a Web UI didn't offer advantage there.
- timthelion 10y ago
  On what TUI systems is a multi-column layout not possible? On what TUI systems are dynamic updates not possible? In my experience, teletype or ssh is much better in this regard, as the systems use socket connections which support push, which allows updates to propogate faster and more efficiently than using http (I know, http2 improves this system, as well as websockets, but those are recent arivals and only serve to play catch-up).
tyingq 10y ago
I think that depends on what you mean by "good". Being able to complete transactions without taking your fingers off the keyboard is almost always faster. So, if it's an application where the end user spends a lot of time, a green screen can be more efficient. Things like a call center, or the check-in counter at an airport, etc. It does depend on a good text and boxes ui though. Green screens had things like pulldowns, copy/paste, etc.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  And even if it weren't faster, it's more comfortable. As someone who spends the vast majority of his waking hours behind a screen, I can tell the difference between two days that involved a lot of mousing around and two days typing (I usually get to type most, but there are projects where I can't). I can only imagine what it must feel like if you have to use a web interface to move between pages all the time.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Being able to complete transactions without taking your fingers off the keyboard is almost always faster. Until you get carpal tunnel syndrome.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    Is switching back and forth from a keyboard to a mouse less likely to cause carpal tunnel?
peterwwillis 10y ago
Nah. Green screens were great. Stuff today is crap. How does a user interface? For a web site, primarily with a mouse. So, single touch input. For green screen they have an array of dedicated individual simultaneous input devices (known as "keys"). In addition, green screen often provides near-immediate response, whereas touchscreens can suffer from lag either in the physical interface or the unfortunate multiprocess operating system. Finally, green screen was designed to step quickly through the interface, where web requires lots of hunting around for what you want to do. You simply can't interface better with an application than a single process dedicated application using fixed multiple inputs with immediate response. It's like web pages are a cart and horse and green screen is a race car.
- loudandskittish 10y ago
  The first job I took right out of college (I was kinda out of money and needed a job immediately) was at a polling company. You know, the obnoxious kids who call and say, "If an election were held tomorrow..." Anyway, the place still used green screen terminals in 2006 (Mmm, with mechanical keyboards attached). In most cases, the only input required was a single number for each response, so once I'd memorized a script and the responses, I could get through a survey without looking at either the screen or the terminal. Eventually the company shut down, and needing another job right away, I went to another polling company, who used a web interface for some reason. So there I had to use a vintage mouse (...which obviously did not bring the same joy as a vintage keyboard) to click radio buttons and check boxes and was, frankly, just a painful experience all around. So, yeah, I agree, there are a surprising number of instances where an old terminal UI is significantly better.
nabla9 10y ago
Text terminal can provide superior user interface. They can be faster and very logical. When you use them several hours per day and master the system they surpass most modern UI's. Minimal distraction, fast access and less errors. Good modern UI design uses common metaphors that make it easier to learn new systems that are used with mouse if you are familiar with metaphors. They are designed for the beginner. There is nothing that prevents modern UI designer from learning the lessons from old terminals and carefully crafting the application so that experienced users can use different screen layout with fast keyboard navigation. It's just very rare.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  The worst thing about our modern GUIs, IMO, is that they've basically brought UI evolution to a screeching halt. I don't think we've even begun to develop optimal user interfaces, and we won't as long as the "common metaphor" idea holds sway. Think what it would be like if we applied that idea to the real world, so (e.g.) hammers, can openers, toilets, and bulldozers all had to operate using a common set of widgets. It's hard to envision, but I would bet a very large sum of money that the result wouldn't be optimal for any of those jobs. That's what we've done with computer UIs. Unfortunately, I don't see any real way out of the trap.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Unfortunately, I don't see any real way out of the trap. Some new device or application will introduce a new metaphor or technology that eventually trickles into existing software. Unfortunately, last time this happened that new tech was touchscreens, and I fear voice is next. These are both regressions in efficiency for lots of tasks.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Think what it would be like if we applied that idea to the real world, so (e.g.) hammers, can openers, toilets, and bulldozers all had to operate using a common set of widgets. Only apps don't do that. Paint apps use brushes and canvases, spreadsheet apps use cell grids, music apps use notation views and piano rolls, writing apps use document screens, games use whatever invented controls and worlds, etc. What is common is that a lot of stuff we do involves mere text and symbol manipulation (buying tickets, reading news, checking sports scores, entering customer data, etc). For those we use the same widgets, yes. But in the real world we do build all kinds of stuff, from cars to boats, and from skyscrapers to bulldozers, to pinballs with nuts, bolts, screws, wires, glass panels, etc., too. A hammer is as useful for hanging a frame as it is for building a house.
jwilliams 10y ago
I've seen it many times, particularly in finance which still has plenty of VT100 applications. The reason is that once you know the codes, you can navigate and enter data at a genuinely incredible rate. If you've ever watched an experienced operator on one of these applications you'd be amazed. For one loan processing application, the terminal was an order of magnitude faster than the Web-based interface that was being deployed. The key here though, is "experienced". This is someone who has developed the knowledge and muscle-memory to operate at that speed. This also makes the system more brittle (and often harder to change). Critically, it also means it takes a lot of training and time for people to be productive. The reason many big organizations dropped the terminals - they wanted to be able to train people quicker, not because it was more productive.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >The key here though, is "experienced". The other key is that those people and those "POS" style apps do very little things -- mostly a single task like e.g. bank accounts management.
  - jwilliams 10y ago
    The example I put in there was loan applications, which are quite complex. Loan origination (especially Business Loans) is perhaps the most complex business process I've ever encountered.
- sperglord 10y ago
  I call this "the Dwarf Fortress UI paradigm." Yes, it's very fast to someone experienced with it. Yes, the learning curve is incredible. No, it will never change because the stakeholder (ie. the developer) is happy with it.

baddox 10y ago

I think you can hold your fire. Don't you think it is true that in some cases a pleasant web interface disguises the old guts of a legacy system? I see absolutely no insinuation that all web interfaces are more pleasant than TUIs.

Spooky23 10y ago

I'd disagree strongly. The dynamics of a web application are different than a terminal app. You're average web-skinned 3270 app is generally a direct translation of whatever the app did done by a gang of contractors without any design consideration. The problem with that is that for all of the most trivial of apps, the use cases were envisioned 30 years ago. That's usually a problem. For example, one app that I looked at that still had old documentation available. Their design was based around 90% of transactions were initiated by a clerk opening paper mail. The obtuse layout of screens was there because they processed mail to dispatch it to appropriate teams of clerks, and it was customized to each function. Today 90% of transactions are initiated by phone or webchat, and are expected to be resolved in one call. Bad web implementations are common. But it's almost always bad to ape things that aren't understood, which is the case 80% of the time for webified temrinal apps.

mastazi 10y ago
> You're average web-skinned 3270 app Am I? (Sorry I couldn't resist)
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Life would be simpler!

coldtea 10y ago

>There is so much wrong with this sentiment! It's just kind of folded in there, the insinuation that "web interfaces are more pleasant" than TUIs. I cannot express how much this kind of writting annoys me. Why can't they tell the story without wedging in unbacked opinions. Not everything needs to backed. It's obvious that most people, at least most lay people, find web UIs better and more friendly than terminal style interfaces... Pleasant is not something objective to be measured comparing TUIs and web UIS -- it's in how people see them, and it's clear that what the article says it true for most people.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

TUIs are great for experienced users, but are terrible for inexperienced users. A good example of where a simple GUI is useful is POS systems. Sure, you could use a TUI, but you'd have to train every 16 year old kid who works for you for 2 weeks over summer, which is going to cost you. On the other hand, I've noticed that airlines still use a terminal emulator for their booking and check in system. They're amazingly fast at using it, most of the commands are 1 or 2 letters. But you're dealing with a smaller group of trained and skilled employees, with a much lower turnover and a much higher overall training requirement. There's probably also legacy reasons why airlines use a TUI, but it seems that the staff never have any issues using it, I've never seen them having to consult a manual.

eeZah7Ux 10y ago
> TUIs are great for experienced users, but are terrible for inexperienced users. Usability research proved this to be false again and again but unfortunately text is not showy enough.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  I'd love to see this research. I've wondered about it myself
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  They are probably talking about what TUIs get with replaced with in practice, rather than an optimum replacement GUI.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  TUIs suffer from a lack of discoverability, I have to type in "help" or look up the man page to actually figure out how to do anything. Put me in front of an airline booking system, and I'm going to be completely lost. Put me in front of a computer opened to an airlines website, and I can probably figure out how to order myself some tickets.
  - 10y ago

DrScump 10y ago

Until 2014 (at the earliest, may have extended into 2015), the built-in ticketing kiosks at AT&T Park (San Francisco) ran on Windows NT PCs, with a 1999 copyright date on the boot screen (when it crashed).