How a Computer Should Work

42 points by fuzzy

jessicah

It's why I still work on Haiku when I can, which fulfills almost all of these.

orib

Yes. It's not quite how 9Front works, but a computer working the way I want it to is the reason I work on 9front.

And the last point is definitely a big part of computers working the way I want.

jeeger

I don't really want my computer to be an appliance (implying limited customizabilty and maintainability), but I agree with the gist of it.

guillego

This reminded me a lot to Jeff Raskin's "Design Considerations for an Antropophilic Computer", regarding the design of the Apple Macintosh. It's always a good read.

fuzzy

Oh, I do prefer "Person In The Street" to "mere mortal".

david_chisnall

Given the framing, this is particularly striking:

Applications you actually own

Applications, as a concept, arise from proprietary software business models. They exist to provide silos where you can keep users and try to discourage them from going elsewhere. They come with their own file formats, their own UIs, and maybe some grudging interoperability if they can't get away without it.

Why would you want to recreate this in a computer designed for the user?

mwcampbell

Regardless of business model, shouldn't a personal computer have discrete programs that can be updated separately from each other and from the operating system? What would you propose instead of "applications"?
- janus
  
  What would you propose instead of "applications"?
  
  I would propose Arcan-A12.
- david_chisnall
  
  It should have discrete components that can be updated separately, but those shouldn’t be silos, they should be able to operate over shared structured data and cooperate to present a unified user interface, not each pretend it is running on a completely isolated computer.
franta

Maybe we should rather call it „programs“ - sets of routines that can be executed on data, where both data and programs are owned by the user (local data, free software).

fazalmajid

Jef Raskin's Canon Cat probably came close to this, but was a commercial flop.

fuzzy

TIL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_Cat

… task-dedicated microcomputer

… A range of application software was built into 256 KB of ROM: a standard office suite, telecommunications, a 90,000-word spelling dictionary, and user programming toolchains for Forth and assembly language. …
- Internet_Janitor
  
  try it in your browser!
  
  https://archive.org/details/canoncat
- fazalmajid
  
  Jef Raskin's son Aza continued in his footsteps:
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aza_Raskin
gcupc

A lot of that sounds like Classic MacOS.

I'm building myself a 'digital typewriter', and my current thinking is 'boot to emacs, don't bring up network connections until asked'.
- alemi
  
  Interesting, I'm planning to do the same.
  
  I've just bought a cheap laptop to "boot to Emacs" and wondering if kmscon could be enough to launch emacs -nw or if a minimal graphical session is needed.
  
  I hope you'll share more about this.
  - gcupc
    
    kmscon is definitely enough for emacs -nw. It's pretty much as capable as any graphical terminal; only issues I've found:
    
    it supports 24-bit color, but Emacs won't see that it supports > 256 unless running in tmux for some reason? And 256 colors looks gross; better to pick 16 and no emacs theme, or 24bit and accept needing tmux.
    
    It doesn't support redefining the base palette, so base16-shell doesn't work.
    
    You are supposed to be able to launch other graphical console apps (e.g. any SDL apps or a Wayland session) from it with a wrapper script, but it has never worked for me and I haven't had the spoons to prepare a proper bug report.
    
    Pretty much all config changes require a restart.
    
    The only other option I'm considering is maybe running graphical emacs under Cage with settings to minimize colors and fonts. That way I could spawn out graphical things as needed, but still keep the display basically single-tasking.
    
    white-star
    
    It does support changing the palette through the config file. Change the TERM and perhaps other envars to get apps to support full color.
    
    sudo systemctl restart kmscon@ttyN
    
    Will restart, may be easier from another tty.
  - chbarts
    
    Applications you actually own
    
    This is the nicest version of the closed-source world, meaning it was how closed-source software worked before vendors could force everyone to play the games they were already playing with Serious Enterprise Customers. (Remember dongles? Wish you didn't?) It means you still don't own your own software, but you can rely on it not suddenly disappearing on you; you're a tenant with a long-term lease, as opposed to someone living in a flophouse. You can't change the floorplan or get rid of the fluorescent lights that give you a headache, but, hey, it will still be here six months from now.
    
    franta
    
    Even that hated license dongles are part of the era where proprietary software ran offline and was deterministic, worked same all the time. It was much worse than free software but much better than today's Cloud/SaaSS applications, that run only online, data are stored at provider's servers and software can change anytime without notice. Back then, you also bought permanent licenses, so your software from 1994 still works while your subscription from 2024 is over.
  - sjamaan
    
    I think LibreELEC comes kinda close to that. But of course it's not a general-purpose OS, as it runs only a single user-facing application.
  - white-star
    
    Light background? Nope, quite garish at nighttime or in the studio. Reverse is only a bit hard to see on a notebook outside at noon. But not important as text was hidden according to a previous rule.
    
    Dark theme is the best default until OS loads themes.