@ninjawedding

meanwhile the Gemini Guidance Computer team laugh

"you MIT people had 4K of RAM, we had 39 whole bits AND WE WERE GRATEFUL"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Guidance_Computer

@natecull john roderick often talks about his ~85 year old mother on his podcasts, and describes how she (as a programmer in the 1950s-1960s) is appalled at pretty much all bugs in computer programs and the blasé attitude developers have, saying something like "back when I worked on those machines we made sure the code was correct before we sent it to anybody, we spent months and years making sure everything was completely correct before any of it was sold"

@natecull Actually, the Apollo 11 block II guidance computer had 2k of RAM (core memory) and 32k of ROM. This was a significant upgrade from the previous block I unit that had 1k of RAM (again, core memory) and 24k of ROM.

Even a VIC 20's feeble 3.5k RAM was luxurious by comparison.

@natecull The programming paradigm I've always loved is this: "The program should always act in the way that is least surprising to the user".

@natecull
Someone please draw this.

@natecull AGREE

@natecull this is not even far from what would really happen

@natecull
In fact: the Apollo guidance computer had awesome and groundbreaking UI.

@natecull This reminds me. I was at a 2 day course in usability by Norman Nielsen Group.

They talked about they where frustrated that devs didn't take them seriously when the pointed out (via usability testing) that a UI was too difficult to use. The devs said "well the users are just not smart enough!".

To prove that the UI really was too difficult to use they did the usability test with rocket scientists from NASA and showed that even they couldn't figure out the UI.

Huh talk about Margaret Hamilton and there she is!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbVOF0Uk5lU

and there's a million things she hasn't done
but just you wait

@natecull if the kids these days still printed their code, they'd get to the moon simply by climbing up it

@natecull I love that this post is making the rounds again.

I was reading about Commodore Grace Hopper the other day and it made me think of this post, but I couldn't remember who wrote it.

So, you know, thanks and all that.

@natecull ok, but I was picturing Wicked Witch of the West Margaret Hamilton

@natecull Real programmers code in assembly language. That’s all.

@natecull The raspberry pi: cheaper than a console game, fits in a pocket, powerful enough to run a full graphical OS, uses 6 watts running full-pelt.

The computer I just had to buy so that my wife could run Android Studio: $500, hundreds of watts, weight in double-digit kilos and big enough to need its own furniture.

One of these is what all computers should look like by now.

@natecull I think it makes the most sense to design UI for the majority of people who will use it rather than edge cases. You can spend unlimited resources trying to make a UI that works for people who don't effectively draw intuitive conclusions based on related information, but you'll reach a larger audience by appealing to those who do, because those who do also have the wherewithal to ditch your product for another one that does what they want the way they want.

@natecull heard that in Kitboga voice and it made it even better.

@natecull
I am feeling this in all of my soul 😔

@natecull Also on the hardware side, my 85 year old Mom has skin so dry her fingertips don't often get read by on-screen touch sensors, so that's a real clap up the side of the head.

She used to be a nurse in an intermediate care facility, so was at the time very technically competent, but now at 85, if you even move one UI element to another corner, she can't figure it out. Because, basically, she's done thinking. Just wants to use it.

@natecull You may enjoy this: http://www.righto.com/2019/01/inside-apollo-guidance-computers-core.html -- the author has analyzed and reverse-engineered many of those old but awesome machines

@natecull I allways say small children should interface test them. If they can make of it there is a high chance its intuitive

@natecull we just need to make this the standard for all UX testing...

@natecull @ellotheth I would hope Hamilton would be a bit more nuanced on her take. The memory safety of the binary, usability and accessibility of the UI and maintainability of code has increase tremendously.

@natecull I have a little Alan Cooper in my head for this.

@natecull just came across this again, and it is so so good. 💖

@natecull Hilarious! Thank you! 😂

@natecull

I'm not yet 50 and I feel the same way, particularly on the web 😓

@natecull this is the best 😂

@natecull "When I was your age, we fit entire graphics demos in 256 bytes. Now, even toots won't do that."

https://youtu.be/Imquk_3oFf4

@natecull That's fair. I learned to program on machines with only a few K of memory back in the day. Nothing that would get anyone to the moon of course, I'm not that good... I suspect the furthest people would get on my newbie coding back then was as far as the front door when they run away screaming about bad code.

@natecull

"I was waking up at 6am, 4 hours before we even went to sleep. Designed screens on VT100 and VT220 terminals before you were even *born*... no mouse - and you tell the young people of today that and you know, they won't believe you!"

(needs a broad Yorkshire accent 😂)

@natecull I had a UX design crash course once - doing paper prototypes. So if the test person clicks on something you exchange the 'view' etc. This already would let some people think about the 'flow' or 'non-flow' they are about to create ...

@natecull I say this all the time. I didn't send people to the moon, but I did control and monitor power stations in a computer that has less processing horsepower than an average USB hub.

@natecull but aren’t they today just copying and modifying already existing code?

@natecull my interface
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<button>
</body>
</html>

@natecull Margaret Hamilton?

@natecull Oh so much this.

@natecull
To be fair, the UIs for all the machine involved in sending people you the moon were not exactly the epitome of what would be considered “accessible UX” today, and required extensive training to use. (Yeah, this hardly justifies the bloody and bugs, but it should be kept in mind.)
@aeva

@natecull I read this is Margaret Hamilton’s voice 🤣

@drguidoknapp Anekdotischer Thread:-)

@natecull If you are interested in the practical difficulties of computer usage in space during the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo programs, the book Carrying the Fire by Michael Collins is interesting. He was the Command Module pilot during the Apollo 11 Moon mission. He explains extensively the steps they had to take to program their computer for a rendezvous with another spacecraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_the_Fire

@natecull This, on so many levels. I say this as a web engineer drowning in javascript and css.

@natecull this is hilarious 😂

@natecull Had me in the first eighth, not gonna lie…

@natecull I was about to grumble at you about "why does it have to be an old WOMAN", but then read the Margret Hamilton scolding the UIX for it being slow trash and instead decided to 👍 instead.

She's now my UIX consultant in my head. Though she's far less grumpy than mental Jakob Nielsen.

@natecull I even downloaded that software and I have no idea how to use it.

@natecull strong OK pioneers but boomer nonetheless vibes

@natecull Sometimes I imagine Grace Hopper and her microsecond of wire, just disappointed in the piss-poor job I'm doing shuffling letters around

@natecull seriously. I just switched from 20 to 100 Mbit - ask me if anything got 5 times faster...

@natecull
The UI’s I make are just beautiful and sweet and nice, and everything works.😌

Then the page goes live, and there’s a billion tracking partner scripts that tell about cookies, open a chat, track what user clicks and loads ”user customised” content. THEN it crashes. 😞

@natecull that’s why you need us UXers to test your prototypes with the users

@natecull

@natecull I have no memory of liking and boosting this, but here we are again in 2022, after the eternal september, and its back.

Im not even mad, infact, i am glad.

@natecull the Doherty Threshold is alive and well.
https://gugel.medium.com/the-doherty-threshold-5471ca990de6

@natecull I just blame the FE team when they mess up implementing my designs

@natecull

*Laughs in COBOL*

Maybe I'm becoming that type of user.

@natecull lol😂 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

@natecull she did not design the DSKY

@natecull omg omg omg just yes and thank you

@natecull One of my mentors in IT used to tell me he wrote his PhD thesis on a computer with 15k of RAM. "You learned pretty quickly how overlays worked!"

@natecull I'm briefly glad that I don't know what Margaret Hamilton's voice sounds like because if I could so much as accurately imagine this it would absolutely destroy my soul.

@natecull but it was fast on my computer. Worked perfectly fine. It is your providers fault that this is slow. 😆 #LameExcuseNo1

@natecull to be fair, she also got to store programs in custom hardware ropes, which is just not supported on my intel chipset.

@natecull @adamshostack it we gotta feed all those tracking systems for ads to make money off those mouse movements and clicks! /s

This is because in the last ~decade, the majority of (proprietary) software stopped serving users' needs, and instead started serving developers' own ones almost exclusively.