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Why a video? Here's a recent port: https://github.com/magiblot/tvision https://github.com/magiblot/tvision

jrumbut 3y ago
The video is to display what an expert can do with it, if I understand correctly. In undergrad, I worked nights in a warehouse where most things were managed by a very complicated TUI program. The learning curve was quite steep. What someone could do after 6 months of using it was completely different to what a beginner without a trainer could do. You wouldn't be able to see what is good about it by just setting it up on your own computer and playing with it (and of course you probably don't have a busy warehouse to manage).
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  May be so, but Turbo Vision was not a unique interface paradigm. It worked just like any CUA application of the era, with dialogs and widgets, tab/funcion keys etc. Its "raison d'être."
  - kragen 3y ago
    perhaps you intend to assert that turbo vision implemented the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access standard, or made it easy for applications to do so if so, that's news to me
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Yes it did to a large extent, although I think some of the function key defaults were a bit different, probably from older Borland apps. But by and large converging on a singular CUA/MDI interface from Mac OS, Windows, IBM, Motif, QBasic, and TVision, in the late 80s. While not everyone got there 100% it did help tremendously that one could sit at a Mac/Win/Dos PC, Unix Workstation, or IBM mainframe and understand the application level interface immediately. We're sadly losing that as "smart" people decide to hide things from "dumb" people in terms of interface design.
kragen 3y ago
compare these alternatives: - spend an hour comparing recent turbovision-like libraries. spend twenty minutes building one. spend two hours working through the tutorial. spend sixteen hours building a new application using the library. use it. get a feeling for what an application using the library written in a weekend by someone with no experience is like. (this is my understanding of the alternative you're suggesting) - spend eight minutes watching a video of a domain expert using a user interface built in turbovision by programmers experienced in turbovision, who refined that user interface over years. (this is what i was asking for) which one do you think provides more insights into the textual user interface design space which one provides more insights per minute
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Well, maybe you could spend a minute looking at the screen shots at the link and realize it works like every typical desktop app anyone has used since 1988. TV is a classic interface in every sense of the word—it isn't pushing boundaries as perhaps you are looking for.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kragen 3y ago
    i notice that you haven't answered any of the four questions i've asked in my previous two comments, instead telling me a lot of things i already know (and also linking tvision, which is an interesting project, thank you) to me this seems surprisingly discourteous what do you hope to accomplish by such an abrasive interaction style
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      I see no question marks outside of the first post asking for a video. You also implied looking at TV would take an hour or more, which yes was mildly annoying. Though I see the grandparent of this post reads more passive-aggressive than I was intending when I wrote it.

The video is to display what an expert can do with it, if I understand correctly. In undergrad, I worked nights in a warehouse where most things were managed by a very complicated TUI program. The learning curve was quite steep. What someone could do after 6 months of using it was completely different to what a beginner without a trainer could do. You wouldn't be able to see what is good about it by just setting it up on your own computer and playing with it (and of course you probably don't have a busy warehouse to manage).

mixmastamyk 3y ago
May be so, but Turbo Vision was not a unique interface paradigm. It worked just like any CUA application of the era, with dialogs and widgets, tab/funcion keys etc. Its "raison d'être."
- kragen 3y ago
  perhaps you intend to assert that turbo vision implemented the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access standard, or made it easy for applications to do so if so, that's news to me
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Yes it did to a large extent, although I think some of the function key defaults were a bit different, probably from older Borland apps. But by and large converging on a singular CUA/MDI interface from Mac OS, Windows, IBM, Motif, QBasic, and TVision, in the late 80s. While not everyone got there 100% it did help tremendously that one could sit at a Mac/Win/Dos PC, Unix Workstation, or IBM mainframe and understand the application level interface immediately. We're sadly losing that as "smart" people decide to hide things from "dumb" people in terms of interface design.

kragen 3y ago

compare these alternatives: - spend an hour comparing recent turbovision-like libraries. spend twenty minutes building one. spend two hours working through the tutorial. spend sixteen hours building a new application using the library. use it. get a feeling for what an application using the library written in a weekend by someone with no experience is like. (this is my understanding of the alternative you're suggesting) - spend eight minutes watching a video of a domain expert using a user interface built in turbovision by programmers experienced in turbovision, who refined that user interface over years. (this is what i was asking for) which one do you think provides more insights into the textual user interface design space which one provides more insights per minute

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Well, maybe you could spend a minute looking at the screen shots at the link and realize it works like every typical desktop app anyone has used since 1988. TV is a classic interface in every sense of the word—it isn't pushing boundaries as perhaps you are looking for.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- kragen 3y ago
  i notice that you haven't answered any of the four questions i've asked in my previous two comments, instead telling me a lot of things i already know (and also linking tvision, which is an interesting project, thank you) to me this seems surprisingly discourteous what do you hope to accomplish by such an abrasive interaction style
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    I see no question marks outside of the first post asking for a video. You also implied looking at TV would take an hour or more, which yes was mildly annoying. Though I see the grandparent of this post reads more passive-aggressive than I was intending when I wrote it.