Brick update (or what passes for one around here ;-)

[Glenn Alexander]

On Tuesday 22 July 2003 16:16, Brian T Rice wrote: 
> Hm, Qt (or is that KDE?) on framebuffer or something. It looks 
decent 
> enough. The buttons should probably just be flat squares, to present 
big, 
> comfy targets for styluses or fingers. 
> 
I just screen-grabbed what is on my desktop at the moment (KDE 3.1.2) 
rather than muck around for hours in GIMP drawing new buttons and 
stuff. KDE is pretty good looking, but it's all in C++ (pronounced 
'C-choke-choke') and I wouldn't even try to re-program anything :-(. 
On Brick the user could, of course, set the buttons to look like 
whatever turned them on. My screen-shot mock-ups probably represent 
what would happen if someone canabalised the KDE graphics ;-) 
 
> Anyway, you might want to check out Squeak's Dynapad project: 
> http://spe.sf.net/ (supposed to be heavily updated soon), 
> or Faure: http://russell-allen.com/squeak/faure/ 
> 
Interesting, but not what I have in mind. I like my splitting up of 
screen real-estate into bands(of course, that doesn't mean anyone else 
will like it too!) and I am thinking forward to some more ideas that 
aren't clear enough in my own head to get on a page yet. 3D worlds and 
immersive environments, mainly. 
 
The UI banding idea came about as I attempted to get certain 
non-negotiable aspects of my ideal PDA onto an ever smaller screen. 
What I had in mind at first was much more rigid and only would have 
worked in a 4:3 aspect ratio. And that would have forced me into a 
book-sized PDA at minimum, and I am thinking phone-sized is a better 
minimum. And being able to scale easily up to mega-pixel resolutions 
on the same UI is a good idea, I feel. One UI to rule them all, and 
all that ;-). 
 
Although I am thinking down to PDA level, my prototype is currently 
planned to be a sub-notebook with a 512x384 display. Have a look at 
the Branium DreamMax: 
http://www.brainium.com/content.asp?page=dreammax 
:or recall the Newton eMate to get the idea. I think the education 
area would be the most sensible place to target with a slate-based 
system initially especially with the traditional SmallTalk et. al. 
focus on getting into the code and hacking things about every which 
way. IT education at primary/secondary school level was my major at 
Uni. and is a big area of interest for me. And If I can get a system 
cheap enough and working in Chinese, there is a rather large market 
just out my door here! 
 
> Also, I noticed you're playing the Russian film Solaris at the 
bottom, a 
> real rarity! :) 
> 
I just spent 6 months living here in NE-China next-door to an 
Argentinian girl with a degree in Russian Literature (studied in 
Russia), an Italian passport and a home address in Holland! (She is 
now living somewhere in Central Africa). I got to see a lot of 
non-English DVDs! There is some really great stuff out there you just 
don't see if you only follow the US box office. 
 
Regards, Glenn 
-------------------------------------------------------- 
Glenn Alexander 
(B.Teach, B.Ed Major IT Education, University of Wollongong Australia) 
http://www.shoalhaven.net.au/~glenalec