4 ms·

Canon Cat

35 points by ido 18y ago

moe 18y ago
Flagged - no content.
- ido 18y ago
  Are you implying the wikipedia article contains no content that might be interesting to HN readers? The CC is quite extraordinary in terms of its UI, and yet many people are unfamiliar with it.
  - moe 18y ago
    I flagged it because the submission contains no content. It's just a link to a random(?) wikipedia page. The page was last modified in November 2008. The device was released in 1987. You do know what the N in HN stands for? Seriously, are we gonna submit half of wikipedia now? I'm sure the pages for Newton, Apple II, Atari, Amiga and other vintage hardware are no less relevant than this.
    - ido 18y ago
      > What to Submit[1]: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. If you think any of the pages you've mentioned are interesting and would spur conversation than I think you should submit them. If HN readers disagree they won't up vote it. [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - windsurfer 18y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
  - rbanffy 18y ago
    "and yet many people are unfamiliar with it." I think we could do an accurate emulator. If Jeff Raskin is not was^H^H^Hinvesting his time here, someone should invite him. Of course, that would require him to be alive, which is not the case... Would it be possible to round up whoever was involved in the Cat hardware design?
    - joe_bleau 18y ago
      You do know the Jef Raskin is dead, right?
michael_nielsen 18y ago
A Jef Raskin followup project to the Canon Cat is Archy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy Fascinating UI concept: largely search-based, with everything persistent (no saving), infinite non-windowing work area, and many other interesting features.
- ido 18y ago
  I've actually known about (and used) Archy long before I knew about its predecessor... It's surprising how obscure the Cat is, considering Raskin's renown.
- TFrancis 18y ago
  Everyone should read Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface. He expresses many of his interface ideas used with the Canon Cat and Archy in the book. I now consider thoughtful interface design a moral decision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface
  - ggchappell 18y ago
    From that article: > Every action should be undoable, even after a document or application has been closed and reopened. At first, this sounded ridiculous. Undo after a save? But then I realized I do that now & then myself, using a version control system. So here I am editing a DVCS-managed document. Pre-save undo is handled by the editor, while post-save undo is handled by the DVCS (which is nice, but I usually have to look up how to do it). All this underscores what crappy interfaces we really have, and how we get used to them, and so overlook their serious flaws.
    - TFrancis 18y ago
      Jef doesn't think you should have to save. It should be automatic. I've been thinking about a system that version controlled a file after every keystroke. It would be a little heavy but, consider that you could undo anything forever.
deleted 18y ago
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deleted 18y ago
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mrinterweb 18y ago
Funny. I named my cat Conan, but I had no idea he was being named after a computer as well as a talk show host and barbarian.
- alecst 18y ago
  Canon =! Conan
vitovito 18y ago
Raskin's book, The Humane Interface, is basically what kicked me over into UX from development. The Canon Cat is absolutely fascinating, and I got to study one for a research project in college. Archy never really got traction. Creating a text editor from scratch in Python wasn't the way to go; starting with something like Gecko and contentEditable would have gotten them somewhere -- anywhere -- faster. Jef Raskin passed away shortly before my college research project, very sad, but the project was to extrapolate from the proposals in The Humane Interface and examine if they still applied today. The big issue is that Raskin, THE and the Cat only explored text editing in any level of detail. You can imagine how the ideas could apply to any sort of process on the PC, from system management (Time Machine) to video editing (non-linear) to web browsing (Ubiquity), but none of his published work discusses it (except for maybe his QuickDraw thesis, which I read so long as as to have forgotten it in its entirety), so you're entirely on your own to envision what it might have looked and worked like. He was also a big fan of zooming UIs which I am, to this day, not sold on (but Oberon looked neat, I'll have to check it out). Speaking of Ubiquity, Raskin's work lives on through his son, Aza, who formerly ran Humanized (I still run Enso on my Windows PC), and now runs Mozilla Labs. Emulating a Canon Cat would be neat. Putting a real Canon Cat online would be hard without the special keys. It wouldn't be inconceivable to put an Apple IIe online, and plug in a SwyftCard: essentially a basic Canon Cat expansion card for the Apple IIe. There have been some efforts to get a copy of SwyftWare, the software version of this (I've even emailed Aza asking if he had a copy) and try to get it running in an emulator, but no-one's had any luck in the few years I've been watching people try (I own an Apple IIe with a SwyftCard).

Canon Cat

35 points by ido 18y ago

moe 18y ago

Flagged - no content.

ido 18y ago
Are you implying the wikipedia article contains no content that might be interesting to HN readers? The CC is quite extraordinary in terms of its UI, and yet many people are unfamiliar with it.
- moe 18y ago
  I flagged it because the submission contains no content. It's just a link to a random(?) wikipedia page. The page was last modified in November 2008. The device was released in 1987. You do know what the N in HN stands for? Seriously, are we gonna submit half of wikipedia now? I'm sure the pages for Newton, Apple II, Atari, Amiga and other vintage hardware are no less relevant than this.
  - ido 18y ago
    > What to Submit[1]: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. If you think any of the pages you've mentioned are interesting and would spur conversation than I think you should submit them. If HN readers disagree they won't up vote it. [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - windsurfer 18y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
- rbanffy 18y ago
  "and yet many people are unfamiliar with it." I think we could do an accurate emulator. If Jeff Raskin is not was^H^H^Hinvesting his time here, someone should invite him. Of course, that would require him to be alive, which is not the case... Would it be possible to round up whoever was involved in the Cat hardware design?
  - joe_bleau 18y ago
    You do know the Jef Raskin is dead, right?

michael_nielsen 18y ago

A Jef Raskin followup project to the Canon Cat is Archy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy Fascinating UI concept: largely search-based, with everything persistent (no saving), infinite non-windowing work area, and many other interesting features.

ido 18y ago
I've actually known about (and used) Archy long before I knew about its predecessor... It's surprising how obscure the Cat is, considering Raskin's renown.
TFrancis 18y ago
Everyone should read Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface. He expresses many of his interface ideas used with the Canon Cat and Archy in the book. I now consider thoughtful interface design a moral decision. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface
- ggchappell 18y ago
  From that article: > Every action should be undoable, even after a document or application has been closed and reopened. At first, this sounded ridiculous. Undo after a save? But then I realized I do that now & then myself, using a version control system. So here I am editing a DVCS-managed document. Pre-save undo is handled by the editor, while post-save undo is handled by the DVCS (which is nice, but I usually have to look up how to do it). All this underscores what crappy interfaces we really have, and how we get used to them, and so overlook their serious flaws.
  - TFrancis 18y ago
    Jef doesn't think you should have to save. It should be automatic. I've been thinking about a system that version controlled a file after every keystroke. It would be a little heavy but, consider that you could undo anything forever.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

mrinterweb 18y ago

Funny. I named my cat Conan, but I had no idea he was being named after a computer as well as a talk show host and barbarian.

alecst 18y ago
Canon =! Conan

vitovito 18y ago

Raskin's book, The Humane Interface, is basically what kicked me over into UX from development. The Canon Cat is absolutely fascinating, and I got to study one for a research project in college. Archy never really got traction. Creating a text editor from scratch in Python wasn't the way to go; starting with something like Gecko and contentEditable would have gotten them somewhere -- anywhere -- faster. Jef Raskin passed away shortly before my college research project, very sad, but the project was to extrapolate from the proposals in The Humane Interface and examine if they still applied today. The big issue is that Raskin, THE and the Cat only explored text editing in any level of detail. You can imagine how the ideas could apply to any sort of process on the PC, from system management (Time Machine) to video editing (non-linear) to web browsing (Ubiquity), but none of his published work discusses it (except for maybe his QuickDraw thesis, which I read so long as as to have forgotten it in its entirety), so you're entirely on your own to envision what it might have looked and worked like. He was also a big fan of zooming UIs which I am, to this day, not sold on (but Oberon looked neat, I'll have to check it out). Speaking of Ubiquity, Raskin's work lives on through his son, Aza, who formerly ran Humanized (I still run Enso on my Windows PC), and now runs Mozilla Labs. Emulating a Canon Cat would be neat. Putting a real Canon Cat online would be hard without the special keys. It wouldn't be inconceivable to put an Apple IIe online, and plug in a SwyftCard: essentially a basic Canon Cat expansion card for the Apple IIe. There have been some efforts to get a copy of SwyftWare, the software version of this (I've even emailed Aza asking if he had a copy) and try to get it running in an emulator, but no-one's had any luck in the few years I've been watching people try (I own an Apple IIe with a SwyftCard).