>This is my first posting.
>
>I am a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon-Industrial Design.
>
>I am currently working for a computer engineering firm. And right now, I
>am looking for the essance of a computer.
>
Hmmmmm. It's a question to which I've given some thought. Here's what
I've come up with: in general terms, computers contain fragments of minds;
not complete minds--there is no core of identity there. And, as with
people, different physical forms express different kinds of mind, while
still constrained by physical limitations.
In general: I think machines which are primarily designed for human
interaction be designed to do so gracefully, reliably, and safely--safety
is a fairly major issue, and one that's been given fairly short shrift. In
this area, I think Apple has done a consistenly good job. Also, look at
telephones; for machines that people use intimately I can think of no
better example. Machines which are designed primarily to interact with
other machines (servers and remote systems) need handsome unobtrusive
packaging which makes many concessions to maintenance and connectivity
needs, since these are major operational problems. In general, the older
firms are better at this kind of design; DEC, IBM, and HP come to mind.
I can write at some length about maintenance considerations--accessibility
of parts, cabling, and so on, if you're interested. Actually, though,
Western Electric has done an excellent job of this with very large
information systems (like, the US telephone network); there ought to be
some published literature on this.
Randolph Fritz
randolph@xxxxxxxxxx
>
>I am a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon-Industrial Design.
>
>I am currently working for a computer engineering firm. And right now, I
>am looking for the essance of a computer.
>
Hmmmmm. It's a question to which I've given some thought. Here's what
I've come up with: in general terms, computers contain fragments of minds;
not complete minds--there is no core of identity there. And, as with
people, different physical forms express different kinds of mind, while
still constrained by physical limitations.
In general: I think machines which are primarily designed for human
interaction be designed to do so gracefully, reliably, and safely--safety
is a fairly major issue, and one that's been given fairly short shrift. In
this area, I think Apple has done a consistenly good job. Also, look at
telephones; for machines that people use intimately I can think of no
better example. Machines which are designed primarily to interact with
other machines (servers and remote systems) need handsome unobtrusive
packaging which makes many concessions to maintenance and connectivity
needs, since these are major operational problems. In general, the older
firms are better at this kind of design; DEC, IBM, and HP come to mind.
I can write at some length about maintenance considerations--accessibility
of parts, cabling, and so on, if you're interested. Actually, though,
Western Electric has done an excellent job of this with very large
information systems (like, the US telephone network); there ought to be
some published literature on this.
Randolph Fritz
randolph@xxxxxxxxxx