Why a Graphical User Interface (GUI)?

For computers to be used on every desktop, they had to be made easier to use. A new method of accessing computer power was required, one that avoided the command-line prompt, didn't require users to memorize complex commands, and didn't require a working knowledge of technological infrastructures such as networking. Not that this information was unimportant; far from it. The information was both too important and too specialized to be of use to the average worker-bee computer user. A knowledge of their applications was all that was important for these users. After all, so the reasoning goes, to drive a car one doesn't have to be a mechanic, so why should a computer user have to understand computer technology? ...

Get HP-UX 11i System Administration Handbook and Toolkit, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.