It's hard to talk about Mac OS X and Windows 8 when you haven't used them.
Peripherals is a very interesting place for this discussion. Arguably, because we're mainly talking about Windows/OSX on modern computers, this is better suited to the lounge. The Peripherals forum is about peripherals for 68k (and I suppose PPC) Mac hardware.
In terms of Windows 8 and touch screens, it's an attempt on Microsoft's part to implement another interface mechanism. We've talked about this a lot in the lounge. I often find myself reaching toward the screens on my laptop to quickly zoom or scroll/pan around the screen. in Windows 8 with touch hardware, this works very well. I can very quickly scroll through dozens, hundreds of pages of Word document or PDF, and I can pan back and forth and left and right on big web pages on small screens.
I would argue it's not the same as the side-attached trackball situation of the '90s. In the early '90s it was pretty clear that having a mouse was quickly going to become necessary to use computers. I'd argue that this aspect is true. However, I'd argue (and it has been well-proven) that touch hardware is NOT necessary for Windows 8.
And other other quick question: Was "clean up desktop" really a command in DOS? I dont' remember DOS itself having a lot of keyboard commands. Each application had commands available. Although I don't remember it being that every single app had every single menu item or command available as a keyboard command. In a lot of apps I used, the "keyboard command" was doing the equivalent of what you can still do in Windows. hit alt, THEN hit the letter associated with the menu you want to open, THEN hit the letter associated with the command or submenu you want to use. (Repeat as necessary to get to a final menu option.)
As another aside - Windows XP meeting a gruesome end is related more to its user than to the system itself. I feel like we've discussed this at length before too.
Peripherals is a very interesting place for this discussion. Arguably, because we're mainly talking about Windows/OSX on modern computers, this is better suited to the lounge. The Peripherals forum is about peripherals for 68k (and I suppose PPC) Mac hardware.
In terms of Windows 8 and touch screens, it's an attempt on Microsoft's part to implement another interface mechanism. We've talked about this a lot in the lounge. I often find myself reaching toward the screens on my laptop to quickly zoom or scroll/pan around the screen. in Windows 8 with touch hardware, this works very well. I can very quickly scroll through dozens, hundreds of pages of Word document or PDF, and I can pan back and forth and left and right on big web pages on small screens.
I would argue it's not the same as the side-attached trackball situation of the '90s. In the early '90s it was pretty clear that having a mouse was quickly going to become necessary to use computers. I'd argue that this aspect is true. However, I'd argue (and it has been well-proven) that touch hardware is NOT necessary for Windows 8.
And other other quick question: Was "clean up desktop" really a command in DOS? I dont' remember DOS itself having a lot of keyboard commands. Each application had commands available. Although I don't remember it being that every single app had every single menu item or command available as a keyboard command. In a lot of apps I used, the "keyboard command" was doing the equivalent of what you can still do in Windows. hit alt, THEN hit the letter associated with the menu you want to open, THEN hit the letter associated with the command or submenu you want to use. (Repeat as necessary to get to a final menu option.)
As another aside - Windows XP meeting a gruesome end is related more to its user than to the system itself. I feel like we've discussed this at length before too.