RE: Commands and Accessibility

I know this is off topic, but here is the history of GUI if anyone is
interested:

At the beginning of the 80s, technicians from Xerox created a computer that
was based on graphics. Since their company was about photocopying, they
wanted to expand on the idea and make command-line computers into
graphic-based computers. They came up with a device called a mouse. When you
clicked on a certain image, or "icon", it executed a command. But the Xerox
heads thought the idea was ridiculous and declined it. Steve Jobs, CEO of
Apple, heard about this new idea and went to learn more. He bought the idea
from the Xerox techs to create the first Macintosh in 1984. During the
making of the Macintosh, Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, found out about the
"Mac-in-making". Bill convinced Steve to let him help work on it. Instead,
Bill wanted to improve his DOS and make it more like Macintosh. In the end,
Bill took ideas from the Macintosh, embedded them in DOS, and renamed it
Windows.

That's the gist of it all.

Sincerely,
Ryan Jean
Assistant IT Specialist
The Disability Network
Flint, MI


-----Original Message-----
From: Accessys@smart.net [mailto:accessys@smart.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 10:04 AM
To: Ryan Jean
Cc: 'David Woolley'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: Commands and Accessibility


ABSOLUTELY  the number of visually impaired users that I have heard
lament the degrading of accessibility over the years is never ending
it seems.

one nice thing about linux is that it still has the "command line"
built in even if hidden and just opening a terminal window (or having
the computer boot into terminal mode) will allow almost all features
to still be used even if sometimes a little crudely.  Linux is also
suffering from GUI'ism.

Bob




On Tue, 19 Aug 2008, Ryan Jean wrote:

>
> Is it just me or does it seem like DOS was a lot more accessible to users
> than Windows? Is it a fair statement to say command-line operating systems
> (DOS, Unix, and Apple) are more accessible than their graphic user
interface
> counterparts (Windows, Linux, and Macintosh)?
>
> Sincerely,
> Ryan Jean
> Assistant IT Specialist
> The Disability Network
> Flint, MI
>
>
>

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Received on Tuesday, 19 August 2008 15:18:56 UTC