Stamp of the Day: Personal Computer
Remember when computers looked like this? Remember those old floppy disks that could bend, the 5 inch ones? It is interesting the keyboard design hasn't changed at all, still the same since the type writers - I guess that is successful, functional design. And those dark monitors with text moving up and down and no icon to be seen anywhere.
Our Dad had the first PC in our house, not counting the XZ-81, or whatever it was called that you hooked up to the TV. I remember he had to load the operating system from a floppy disk every time he started up the computer, maybe it had no hard drive? When I was in seventh grade we had a computer class, and we had to learn MS-DOS and write a little simple program. This was for all students, mandatory. I wonder how many high school students today know what dir, cd, md, and / stands for on a MS-DOS command line.
This stamp is in a special collection celebrating the 20th century - I am sure there will be more stamps from this collection later about technological innovations, history, music, and movies, etc.
5 comments:
"I guess that is successful, functional design"
The QWERTY layout (named after the first row of keys) was invented in the 1860s to minimize the problem with keys jamming in the mechanical typewriter, placing the most used keys as far apart as possible. Not really a problem for most people these days...
Other layouts have been suggested, the most known is the Dvorak from the 1930s, named after its inventor, placing the most used keys on the same row.
That we still use the qwerty layout shows how hard it is to introduce something new and better, when the old system is mainstream and works somewhat ok. Like cars not running on petrol...
I have a couple of old manuals for the Apple Macintosh, where they (have to) explain the whole desktop-idea, and how to use a mouse. I am not so sure you could sell equally groundbreaking paradigms to the mainstream today, especially since almost no-one reads manuals anymore.
About the Dvorak simplified keyboard
So, if I understand this right, the Swedish keyboard is based on the Dvorak layout and called Svorak? That is what the link says. I have huge problems transitioning to Swedish keyboards, especially when I have to used the .,/';
I agree. I switch back and forth between swedish and english layouts, but I have a hard time especially with the parentheses, since they are shifted one step to the left on the swedish. The english is much better to use while programming, frequently used symbols are usually easier to access.
Yep! I agree, and if I remember right the 'snabel-a' = @ is especially hard to find on Swedish keyboards.
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