I recently built a "quest" mode (inspired by Linux's quest mode)
into one of my programs. Basicly it's a Zork style text adventure game.
where he objects you collect activate different features of the
program, such as a scroll which reboots the system when
used, and "switches" that takes the user to one of the programs
menus or CLI interfaces. The interface isn't very
practical; but I decided to do it because I thought
it would be neat.

quote:

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Originally posted by zooz:

I recently built a "quest" mode (inspired by Linux's quest mode)
into one of my programs. Basicly it's a Zork style text adventure game.
where he objects you collect activate different features of the
program, such as a scroll which reboots the system when
used, and "switches" that takes the user to one of the programs
menus or CLI interfaces. The interface isn't very
practical; but I decided to do it because I thought
it would be neat.

So,does anyone else know of any other "bizzare" user interface
designs you have come across?

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Originally posted by LifetimeTrekker:
Anything produced by Microsoft.

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Aircraft cockpits have a "Master Caution" light that acts as a single "idiot light" so all the displays the pilot doesn't need during normal flight but does need to diagnose a problem can be put out-of-the-way.

The last MV-22 that crashed did so because of two factors. The instigating factor was a hydraulic line in an engine pod that got rubbed until it burst. Had that been the only problem, the pilots would've been able to land the aircraft because of a redundant hydraulic system. The Master Caution light lit, alerting the crew to a problem (loss of hydraulic pressure), and the crew pressed the button to clear the alarm (standard procedure to silence the alarm and to allow any future problems to activate the Master Caution light), identified the problem, and set about to perform a precautionary landing. Shortly after, the Master Caution lit again, this time due to zero hydraulic pressure in that particular line. This is where things went south.

The software that updated the balance of the two engine pods underwent a slight pause (milliseconds) when the Master Caution button is pressed to clear the alarm. Since the pilots were now setting the aircraft down, this lag resulted in an appreciable skew between what the balance should be and what it was, so the MC alarm activated again. The crew cleared the alarm, resulting in the same lag, and an even greater skew. The alarm sounds again.

The accident report says the crew cleared the alarm twenty times (I think) in the last few seconds of the flight. Each time, increasing the skew between the correct positions of the engine pods and their actual positions. The aircraft rolled over and crashed. I haven't heard yet whether the problem was with incomplete requirements, whether it was with a design that failed to meet the requirements (and, by extension, a testing program that failed to find the design failure), or whether it was a coding error that failed to satisfy the the design (and, by extension, a testing program that failed to find the coding error).

Not really a problem with the user interface itself (the "Master Caution" approach is pretty much the best option in that environment), but the users' interaction with the system through the user interface exposed a flaw in the system that led to their deaths.

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cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?

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I would be happy to see (or invent myself) a really original UI.
They all seem to be really similiar. Buttons, menus, icons... Differently named, differently shaped.
zooz's idea (althought I have meet similiar ideas already) seems to be a step in a right side.

Somewhere I read about a menu designing technique, that resembles a bit the Windoze Control Panel - big icons in a window. This was also interesting, but not much inventive (the article was rather about OOProgramming, not about UIs).

zooz: I am really interested in your results! Be sure to notify.

quote:

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Originally posted by sk00t:
I would be happy to see (or invent myself) a really original UI.

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Take a look at some of the stuff the Xerox PARC people are doing. For one example, they have things like menus which radiate out like pie wedges from the moust click, so any choice is just a few pixels away.

And, of course, there is always the adventure shell

Oh, and now that I mention that I recall the reactive keyboard. This was something really cool I used about 10 years ago but lost when migrating from some Gould machines to Sun. It was a predictive typer that ran within your shell. As you typed it guessed what you would want to complete the line and presented that ahead of you. But it was much more sophisticated than the annoying crap you see in microsoft word. This thing would look at long chains of commands and come up with really good guesses. For example, if I was doing an edit/compile/test cycle, after about two passes it would know the next command after 'vi foo.c' would be 'make' and the next would be 'regressiontest foo'. So as you got the shell prompt back from one command, the expected next one would be ready to go if you just hit return.

It took a few days training to get used to, but it really cut down on typing time.

quote:

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Oh, and now that I mention that I recall the reactive keyboard. This was something
really cool I used about 10 years ago but lost when migrating from some Gould
machines to Sun. It was a predictive typer that ran within your shell. As you typed
it guessed what you would want to complete the line and presented that ahead of
you.

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I've been wanting a command line "spell checker" that would learn
what command you type frequently, and fix the command line if you
make a mistake.

Of if you type accidently something like

coipy sometext.txt sometxt,txt

it would fix it so is says

copy sometext.txt sometxt.txt

Of course in all cases It should ask you first, which could get a bit annoying,
so this feature should be easily toggled.

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But it was much more sophisticated than the annoying crap you see in
microsoft word. This thing would look at long chains of commands and come up
with really good guesses. For example, if I was doing an edit/compile/test cycle,
after about two passes it would know the next command after 'vi foo.c' would be
'make' and the next would be 'regressiontest foo'. So as you got the shell prompt
back from one command, the expected next one would be ready to go if you just hit
return.
It took a few days training to get used to, but it really cut down on typing time.

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Originally posted by quantumfluff:
Take a look at some of the stuff the Xerox PARC people are doing.

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Aahhaa
I like this!

Example for the lazy ones:

quote:

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Originally posted by zooz:
I would defently like something like this.

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Try a web search. It seems the guys who did the research behind it have a book coming out on it this month. I found sources at http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/project/atic/src/rk/

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it would know the next command after 'vi foo.c' would be 'make' and the next would be 'regressiontest foo'. So as you got the shell prompt back from one command, the expected next one would be ready to go if you just hit return.

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Eww! I can't stand stuff that interferes with my typing like that.

Besides, I normally do any serious hacking with multiple windows. One window is vi, and has the source code I'm working on (or more than one vi window, if there are multiple files that work together). Another window is where I run make. That way I can see the errors and the code at the same time.

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Of if you type accidently something like

coipy sometext.txt sometxt,txt

it would fix it so is says

copy sometext.txt sometxt.txt

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There are Unix shells like that already. SCO's ksh has that as an option, IIRC. I think tcsh and/or zsh may, as well. Again, it's not the kind of thing I'd want, so I don't know a lot about its availability.

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And, of course, there is always the adventure shell

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quote:

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Originally posted by Greg Wooledge:
ww! I can't stand stuff that interferes with my typing like that.

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quote:

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:

Originally posted by quantumfluff:
Take a look at some of the stuff the Xerox PARC people are
doing.

Aahhaa
I like this!
Example for the lazy ones:
(picture not included

Now I can sleep peacefully - someone is still making inventions out there.

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If it does use a 3d engine, can you noclip with this

Off topic peeve: I really hate it when 3d game developers don't include
a no-clipping/walk through walls code in their games. I always wonder
whay "goodies"and oddities are left outside the main map/room/race track/whatever
and I have spent many hours trying to find and exploit bugs in the engine
to try to leave the map/.

quote:

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Originally posted by sk00t:
Aahhaa
I like this!

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In Gran Turismo 2 on the PlayStation, there is a place where you can drive off the
Laguna Seca track. Since Laguna Seca has some pretty interesting elevation

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In Destruiction Derby 2 (demo PC version),on the first level, sometimes the
cars "bleed through" the sky, where there is a mountan awith a track there.
The mountain apparently is behind the paralaxing sky and invisible
Also, when the cars collide in a pile up, sometimes they get merged into eachother.
IThere is a narrow area in the level where I would park my car sideways, and
cause a huge pile up. Sometimes, cars would jump 30 feet
into the air when they collide, usualy if they land on top of another
one. I've had many hours of fun doing this

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In Gran Turismo 2 on the PlayStation, there is a place where you can drive off the
Laguna Seca track. Since Laguna Seca has some pretty interesting elevation
changes, you can "fly" your car around the spectator area. If you drive back
over a bit of track below you, you will fall back onto it.

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I've noticed that in a few driving games, if you get outside of the track,
and keep going, you'll find yourself back on the track, but with all of the sprites
and polygon models removed. This happens in Mario kart, Big Red Racing and even Quake 1. Coincidence?

By the way. In Big Red Racing you can drive off of the track and have it repeat, but
the effect I've mentioned dosent show up until you are play back a demo of the
game. It gets really bizzare when you hit an object on the "repeated" track while playing the game, but so you see the car flying in the demo ,