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> Misusing our glorified virtual line-printers should be finally replaced with something that acknowledges our current reality (which is: HW based on pixel fram

by bregma 4y ago

> Misusing our glorified virtual line-printers should be finally replaced with something that acknowledges our current reality (which is: HW based on pixel framebuffers) A local PC or phone may be your only experience but it is far from the current reality in computers. most computers these days are embedded devices or remote servers, neither of which have pixel framebuffers, or even "video displays". Heck, even inside your PC are computers that only have serial connections: I once had a flaky consumer-grade hard drive that required me to hook up a serial line to its control console from time to time and issue text commands to clear its error buffer (not buying a Seagate ever again). In the end our hardware gets its input from sensors, operates actuators, and performs arithmetic transformations from its input to its output. A very few of those actuators result in coloured blobs on a large LED matrix. Don't get confused with that as a single universal use of computers.

still_grokking 4y ago
I was explicitly talking about the "UI" part. Even the interaction with your HDD through its serial interface ended up on, no big surprise, your display. I don't question TUIs as such! I question how we implement them. The whole "terminal emulator dance" is imho strictly unnecessary. You could also talk to your HDD through its line interface by, for example, some proper RPC mechanism. (With the help of some adequate client software, which could be a CLI application, but also a GUI tool). The HDD doesn't have to provide a framebuffer based user interface, of course. Your client does. Someone else pointed even already to something baking my assumption that getting rid of all the layers of emulation of more than ancient hardware would be not only possible but is even desirable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158846

by bregma 4y ago

still_grokking 4y ago

I was explicitly talking about the "UI" part. Even the interaction with your HDD through its serial interface ended up on, no big surprise, your display. I don't question TUIs as such! I question how we implement them. The whole "terminal emulator dance" is imho strictly unnecessary. You could also talk to your HDD through its line interface by, for example, some proper RPC mechanism. (With the help of some adequate client software, which could be a CLI application, but also a GUI tool). The HDD doesn't have to provide a framebuffer based user interface, of course. Your client does. Someone else pointed even already to something baking my assumption that getting rid of all the layers of emulation of more than ancient hardware would be not only possible but is even desirable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34158846