Bruce Tag Tognazzini – who headed up both the Apple II and Macintosh user interface efforts – has joined SunSoft Inc as Distinguished Engineer, Human Factors Engineering – in effect acting as evangelist for Sun’s user interface efforts. He is currently shooting a video called FutureVision, an attempt to show how the graphical user interface might evolve over the next 15 years – but in less optimistic mood he says that judging by the last nine years (that is since the Macintosh), nothing at all might happen. Tognazzini says that one of the mistakes Apple made was to make the Macintosh trash can swell up when it has something in it. The whole idea of the trash can, he says, was that users could throw away files but still be able to retrieve them after a reasonable length of time. Now they say ‘Oh, the trash can’s in pain’ and empty it straight away, all the files are gone and productivity is blown away. According to one source, Sun Microsystems Inc was at one stage planning to launch its first X-terminal products at the Xhibition trade show a few weeks back, but changed its mind and pulled out.
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