Engaging computers by typing instead of by 'mousing'

I was thinking, these days- sometimes using a computer is rather boring, or unexciting. Doing things on a computer that were once amazing or unimaginable, are now unremarkable and pedestrian. I'd argue that the days of interacting with the computer mainly by keyboard was somehow better. I think it allowed us to be more purposeful and intentional about using the computer, invoking overall more thoughtfulness and enjoyment, maybe also more feeling of achievement.

I liken this to comparing listening to music years ago, to listening today. Now- you can call out to Alexa or Google and have them play any song you like, or use any number of services to listen to whatever you want. To an extent makes you kind of uninvolved. In fact the services are designed to let you be uninvolved, choosing the next songs that it thinks are best.

Compare that to what you had to do- you want music, well do you have any (records, tapes, CDs) lying around? No? First you have to go to the store to buy it, and then collect it. Once you have it at home you might put it somewhere and organize the media... Then you want to listen to it, you have to find the media you are in the mood for. Pull it out of its container, put it into or, onto its player. Now that you've done all that, might as well listen to that whole album because are you really going to search for the 1-2 songs you wanted off the album, listen to those and then find another album - put the first one away having listened to 1-2 songs, and put the next album on?

The new ways are great and convenient for sure- but are we losing something doing things in the new ways? Maybe its nostalgia making me feel for the old ways more than the new?

I remember having a computer program that simply drew a graphic on the screen, and it was amazing to see an image of something. On my 8088 4.77mhz (8mhz on turbo) 640k RAM computer, it was at least 5 minutes to draw MAD Magazines Alfred with the text "What me worry?". I remember running this program- many times, as it was amazing to see this thing on the computer screen. Likewise, not too many years later, opening a VGA quality photo with roughly 256 colours was also amazing. I mean- to have pictures on a computer was amazing!

To have SOUND on a computer was amazing too. For most games, I remember using the "PC Speaker" option- making use of the computer's built in speaker that only was there originally to beep a diagnostic code at start up. In some cases there was a way to emulate a sound card and output some sounds through that speaker. My first experience with a computer playing 'music' was at my friends house (his father had a computer store in Ottawa called Mooney's Bay Computer) where they had an AdLib sound card basically playing some MIDI music- incredible, why would a computer even need to make complex sounds or music?? I now see these original AdLib cards for sale on eBay for $100-$600!

Back to interacting through text and typing on the computer- I suppose too it would force you to use your imagination more. Who were you talking with, where were they, what systems were involved in making all this magic happen? All things that were wondrous and left to your imagination. And, I suppose- there was a lack of judgement when operating through text in terms of communication with others online. IRC, BBS's, the early internet didn't have pictures- I mean why waste time transferring images.

People didn't have a digital camera to take a picture of themselves to put online, nor did they have scanners to scan photos of themselves in. You relied on what your imagination came up with as to what the other person looked like. It was freeing- in that it didn't have to matter. You didn't truly know if it was a male or a female, they might tell you that.. but how could you really know? It didn't matter if they were black or white, or if they were poor or rich, young or old.

Its funny to think, my parents might have been concerned I think that I wasn't 'reading'. But of course I was reading, it was just on a computer screen. Sure I wasn't reading novels- but I was reading things outside of just chatting, there were plenty of things to read and learn about via pre-internet platforms like BBS's, Usenet and community based Free-nets.

Using text also just gave you a better view into what the computer was doing, or what you were asking it to do. When you just point and click on something- it just happens, things get put into action for you easily and quickly. But it doesn't provide an idea of what you are doing/asking of the computer. It was also typical of the time to see the computer responding to what you had asked. Loading, processing, connecting etc., and there were details attached to those. Occasionally these days we get to see what is going on during an install of software, but mostly we're disconnected from all that and shown a spinning circle to indicate that 'something' is happening.

I suppose there is a trend going on now about people moving from smartphones to dumbphones. People moving from very graphical interfaces, to more basic ones. Or also- just interacting by spoken word and now with AI- the ability to mostly speak thoughts to it, and have it speak back to us. Which to me is really just another way of typing to command a computer. Thinking about it- its actually kind of difficult at times to "word words" now- to have a computer (or device) do things, because maybe we had become too accustomed to pointing and clicking or tapping to open. We actually have to use our vocabulary to make something work, which is a good thing to exercise, as using vocabulary is how our thoughts materialize.