Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: Powerful FunctionsImagine th2t you ha\'e a thousand monkeys sitting behind a thous.:~ndcompu• tcr kryboards and that )'OU set them r.~pping ar random at the letters.1t i.s uid that if chey cur)' on doing this day in day out even n,~:~lly.:..Iter many years.oneofrhem will just happen ro type out the cmirc works of Shakespeare.It ls abo s.aid rhat if you lta\'t them r.apping away for jun six months then more lhan one of them wiU write a buggy, but mar• kmble compure:r operating system.Imagine OOw much faster it would 1x if tbe keyboards rhey were working on had one key m;~.ppedtO -:1.macro that produced all the ASCII for thecomple<e '"""'of Shakesptare; a real powerful function.After lining all the monkeys up you would onl)' have to set rhem going fo r about 6ve minutes before one o( tbm hit the bunon -and che ctSk was oomple:te.N<w.oaday.smore -and more rechnical sy,s.. terns ue being equipped.wirh 1hese son of pov.-erful functions; one bunon thou curies out a complete &lSk.While rhis
Source: ACM SIGCHI Bulletin
Author: Lon Barfield
Language: English
Subfield: Human-Computer Interaction
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3014295768