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The original Macintosh also came with a cassette tape in the box, with audio lessons on how to use the "mouse" to move the "cursor" around on the screen, and ho

The original Macintosh also came with a cassette tape in the box, with audio lessons on how to use the "mouse" to move the "cursor" around on the screen, and how to "click" and "double-click" it to make a "selection" -- new terms and new concepts for the vast majority of early users. And, of course, everybody had a cassette player.

open-source-ux 8y ago
In a similar vein, when Microsoft released Windows 3.1 in 1992 (much later than the 1984 Macintosh) they also included lessons on moving a mouse cursor on screen and double-clicking. However, they turned their lessons into a simple but effective interactive tutorial. Here's a screen recording of the entire tutorial - it still holds up as quite informative and well put-together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkM7mJrwcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkM7mJrwcg
- Angostura 8y ago
  The whole point of including minesweeper was to train people to use the mouse.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Solitaire too, iirc.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  I'd never heard of the audio cassette, but our 1990 Mac came with an interactive tutorial (built with an early version of Macromind Director). I remember having a lot of fun overfeeding the fish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgdFZD-N8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgdFZD-N8k
- Theodores 8y ago
  Once upon a time I needed to look something up on my home computer, so I phoned my mum from work and tried to talk her through clicking on a few icons. This was with Windows 3.11 and the task was far from rocket science. After getting nowhere for twenty minutes I discovered what was wrong. My mother - bless her - had the mouse held the wrong way up. She knew that mice - as in the sort that scurry around and work very hard in laboratories - had the tails at the back. Consequently she held the mouse upside down, with the cable coming out the back. Before arriving at this simple mistake I had got her to close the blinds in the room where my computer was setup. In those days mice were opto-mechanical with the ball, and, under extreme bright light the sensors in the mouse were vulnerable to light coming through the plastic housing of the mouse. Connections had been checked too, plus I had managed to get her to reboot the machine with the reset button on the front. Yet all along it was operator error, I imagined everything that could be wrong up to 'it must be a stray neutrino' levels of implausible yet I overlooked the idea that my mum intuitively thought that a computer mouse was like a real mouse with the 'tail at the back'. We got there in the end after I had the eureka moment and worked out my mum was holding the mouse wrong. I could talk her through the rest when that was resolved and got the snippet of information I needed - a telephone number - which I needed for work. It was only when ecommerce and the Amazon Kindle came along that my mother was finally able to use a computer. All difficulties and fears mysteriously vanished when it came to buying stuff online, she became perfectly adept at using a computer then, much to my father's amusement. If only I had known of this tutorial back then.
  - teddyh 8y ago
    > She knew that mice - as in the sort that scurry around and work very hard in laboratories - had the tails at the back. Consequently she held the mouse upside down, with the cable coming out the back. The original mouse did have the cable at the back. That’s why it was called a mouse.¹ 1. https://stason.org/TULARC/languages/english-usage/51-mouses-vs-mice-Usage-disputes-alt-usage-english.html https://stason.org/TULARC/languages/english-usage/51-mouses-...
westoncb 8y ago
I remember my dad telling me about how when he was in grad school in the mid-late eighties—for cognitive psychology with plans to go into Human Computer Interaction—they needed to give mouse training and proficiency tests to folks before they could participate in experiments. Hearing that struck me as so strange since I have no recollection of ever learning to use a mouse—I had always assumed it was just completely intuitive.
- wpietri 8y ago
  When my nephew was 6 months old, I spent a week babysitting him during the days. We did a bunch of things, but the main thing that interested him was learning to put things in his mouth. Especially the bottles I was feeding him with. He'd try over and over and over. Nipple on cheek. Nipple on chin. Nipple on neck. Drop bottle entirely. Nipple in eye. (Do not want!) And once in a great while, nipple in mouth. Then he'd suck for a while and start over again. We learn so much that we forget even learning. If he could have talked and he'd asked me how to put something in his mouth, I couldn't really have told him. I just did it. I think about that a lot when dealing with students, junior programmers, etc. It's so easy for me to think, "How could they not know that?!?" When the real question is how I managed to forget learning.
  - mysterydip 8y ago
    Agreed. My 3 year old daughter wants to play her PBS games on my computer, but is still frustrated by the mouse control. This could be a generational thing too, as the more intuitive option to her is to touch the screen where she wants (like the tablets and phones do). There's definitely a level of abstraction with the mouse that most of us have long forgotten.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Yeah, that old saw "the only intuitive interface ever devised is the nipple" kind of falls down when you see a newborn infant struggling with it. There's no such thing as an intuitive interface, only an interface which follows already-familiar conventions.
GeekyBear 8y ago
The cassette provided the audio track for the on screen tutorial that ran at the same time. There was no way you were going to fit an audio track onto a 400 kilobyte floppy disk along with the demo software. My favorite bit was the randomized maze generator that you used to develop your fine grained mousing skills.
based2 8y ago
:-) https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-a-macintosh-tutorial-taught-people-to-use-a-m-1583366354 https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-a-macintosh-tutorial-taught-pe...

open-source-ux 8y ago

In a similar vein, when Microsoft released Windows 3.1 in 1992 (much later than the 1984 Macintosh) they also included lessons on moving a mouse cursor on screen and double-clicking. However, they turned their lessons into a simple but effective interactive tutorial. Here's a screen recording of the entire tutorial - it still holds up as quite informative and well put-together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkM7mJrwcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkM7mJrwcg

Angostura 8y ago
The whole point of including minesweeper was to train people to use the mouse.
- taneq 8y ago
  Solitaire too, iirc.
kalleboo 8y ago
I'd never heard of the audio cassette, but our 1990 Mac came with an interactive tutorial (built with an early version of Macromind Director). I remember having a lot of fun overfeeding the fish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgdFZD-N8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOgdFZD-N8k
Theodores 8y ago
Once upon a time I needed to look something up on my home computer, so I phoned my mum from work and tried to talk her through clicking on a few icons. This was with Windows 3.11 and the task was far from rocket science. After getting nowhere for twenty minutes I discovered what was wrong. My mother - bless her - had the mouse held the wrong way up. She knew that mice - as in the sort that scurry around and work very hard in laboratories - had the tails at the back. Consequently she held the mouse upside down, with the cable coming out the back. Before arriving at this simple mistake I had got her to close the blinds in the room where my computer was setup. In those days mice were opto-mechanical with the ball, and, under extreme bright light the sensors in the mouse were vulnerable to light coming through the plastic housing of the mouse. Connections had been checked too, plus I had managed to get her to reboot the machine with the reset button on the front. Yet all along it was operator error, I imagined everything that could be wrong up to 'it must be a stray neutrino' levels of implausible yet I overlooked the idea that my mum intuitively thought that a computer mouse was like a real mouse with the 'tail at the back'. We got there in the end after I had the eureka moment and worked out my mum was holding the mouse wrong. I could talk her through the rest when that was resolved and got the snippet of information I needed - a telephone number - which I needed for work. It was only when ecommerce and the Amazon Kindle came along that my mother was finally able to use a computer. All difficulties and fears mysteriously vanished when it came to buying stuff online, she became perfectly adept at using a computer then, much to my father's amusement. If only I had known of this tutorial back then.
- teddyh 8y ago
  > She knew that mice - as in the sort that scurry around and work very hard in laboratories - had the tails at the back. Consequently she held the mouse upside down, with the cable coming out the back. The original mouse did have the cable at the back. That’s why it was called a mouse.¹ 1. https://stason.org/TULARC/languages/english-usage/51-mouses-vs-mice-Usage-disputes-alt-usage-english.html https://stason.org/TULARC/languages/english-usage/51-mouses-...

westoncb 8y ago

I remember my dad telling me about how when he was in grad school in the mid-late eighties—for cognitive psychology with plans to go into Human Computer Interaction—they needed to give mouse training and proficiency tests to folks before they could participate in experiments. Hearing that struck me as so strange since I have no recollection of ever learning to use a mouse—I had always assumed it was just completely intuitive.

wpietri 8y ago
When my nephew was 6 months old, I spent a week babysitting him during the days. We did a bunch of things, but the main thing that interested him was learning to put things in his mouth. Especially the bottles I was feeding him with. He'd try over and over and over. Nipple on cheek. Nipple on chin. Nipple on neck. Drop bottle entirely. Nipple in eye. (Do not want!) And once in a great while, nipple in mouth. Then he'd suck for a while and start over again. We learn so much that we forget even learning. If he could have talked and he'd asked me how to put something in his mouth, I couldn't really have told him. I just did it. I think about that a lot when dealing with students, junior programmers, etc. It's so easy for me to think, "How could they not know that?!?" When the real question is how I managed to forget learning.
- mysterydip 8y ago
  Agreed. My 3 year old daughter wants to play her PBS games on my computer, but is still frustrated by the mouse control. This could be a generational thing too, as the more intuitive option to her is to touch the screen where she wants (like the tablets and phones do). There's definitely a level of abstraction with the mouse that most of us have long forgotten.
- taneq 8y ago
  Yeah, that old saw "the only intuitive interface ever devised is the nipple" kind of falls down when you see a newborn infant struggling with it. There's no such thing as an intuitive interface, only an interface which follows already-familiar conventions.

GeekyBear 8y ago

The cassette provided the audio track for the on screen tutorial that ran at the same time. There was no way you were going to fit an audio track onto a 400 kilobyte floppy disk along with the demo software. My favorite bit was the randomized maze generator that you used to develop your fine grained mousing skills.

based2 8y ago

:-) https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-a-macintosh-tutorial-taught-people-to-use-a-m-1583366354 https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-a-macintosh-tutorial-taught-pe...