- From: Al Gilman <asgilman@iamdigex.net>
- Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 20:14:18 -0500
- To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
At 06:39 PM 2001-10-28 , Anne Pemberton wrote: > Unless you count e-mail readers as early browsers, there was no >beginning of Internet hyperlinking before images were included ... but do >correct me if my memory is faulty .... > I'll correct you, only because I lived through that history. The discrepancy in your memory is a technicality that doesn't matter for what we do going forward to future history. As a matter of sharp-pencil auditing of historical fact, you don't have to count email readers as early browsers. There was the line-mode browser that Tim published first. You memory is not faulty, however, it is just imprecise. There was a text Internet for a long time, and an non-GUI Web briefly, before the GUI-integrated Web that consumers know now simply as Internet. But none of that matters. What you remember is what matters. The explosive growth of the Web, where Internet became de_rigeur for home personal computers, and Internet access sold computers to lots of people who never would have bought them otherwise, came after, and presumed, the GUI integration of web browsing. There was both Internet and Web before the GUI integration; but users today mostly signed up assuming what has been there was after the integration, and they have no need to care that there was a history beforehand. Knowing what we do about the needs of people with disabilities, we do care that the integration is carried forward in a robust way that transforms gracefully between service delivery contexts where the GUI is an accelerator and where it is not. This is not trying to go back to where there weren't pictures in any way. It is trying to re-engineer the way the integration is carried out so it is more flexible across the growing diversity of delivery environments. There was a big bang of desktop usage spurred on by the Webbed Internet. But the desktop is losing its monopoly on Internet access and continued business growth as well as the quality of service delivered to people with disabilities will hang on maturing a more polished and flexible integration of the elements of the medium. Al >Chaals, > > Good news that SVG is progressing past vaporware! It is still not >an easily-available option for a page author, especially one who does not >have a pioneering sense about digital design ... Anyone who uses SVG on >their page needs to provide a link to download the viewer if they don't >want to frustrate users with a blank screen ... > > Unless you count e-mail readers as early browsers, there was no >beginning of Internet hyperlinking before images were included ... but do >correct me if my memory is faulty .... > > Anne > > >At 11:02 AM 10/28/01 -0500, Charles McCathieNevile wrote: >>This is simply untrue. Cognitively disabled users who are looking for >>animated content have every reason to prefer SVG over other formats, or at >>least every reason that can be advanced for using flash. >> >>SVG is not vapourware, it works in animated form now using a readily >>available plugin, it works in at least two static form that supports >>accessibility features. >> >>To make general handwaving assertions about how hard things might be is not >>helpful. We need to assess the technologies available, and the solutions they >>can provide, and then what is on the horizon that we should think about in >>order to provide a better solution as the technology improves. >> >>Otherwise we would be using text-only browsers. >> >>Charles > >Anne Pemberton >apembert@erols.com > ><http://www.erols.com/stevepem>http://www.erols.com/stevepem ><http://www.geocities.com/apembert45>http://www.geocities.com/apembert45 >
Received on Sunday, 28 October 2001 21:00:49 UTC