Re:Modern work requires attention – constant alerts steal it
by eesmith on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @02:50AM
(#36040784)
My first email account was in 1989. That's also when I started doing online chat.
> Chat did not exist, but wouldn't make sense anyway.
Perhaps not to you, but for others it had been around time for some time, along with its problems. Microsoft, for example, distributed WinChat starting with Windows for Workgroups in 1992.
Here's a description of events which took place at Microsoft no later than early 1993, as described in the 1996 book 'Showstopper! : the breakneckrace to create Windows NT and the next generation at Microsoft', https://archive.org/details/showstopperbreak0000zach_p7g1/pa... :
] WinChat was a variant on electronic mail; it allowed two or more people to type messages back and forth as if they spoke on the telephone. These “interactive” conversations were quite popular and illustrated the benefits of a computer network. It was important to test WinChat because NT was supposed to incorporate all Windows networking features. In his memo, Manheim was informing the team that they could use WinChat if they wanted. While his group was testing WinChat, others using it might also turn up problems.
] Manheim’s announcement bothered Cutler. He felt WinChat would distract people from bug fixing. He didn’t want it used. “This isn’t a fun app. It is a waste of time,” he wrote to Manheim. “VMS had this program 10 years ago. It was a waste of time then and it is a waste of time now. Anyone I see wasting their time with [WinChat] is apt to get some verbal abuse.”
] ... Using Winchat “is not a waste of time,” Manheim wrote, his anger rising. “It’s part of the product that will be used by the customers and if it’s trash we'll get shit for it.
] ... I have direct experience with this kind of application at Digital. It is easy to get everyone to sit around and type at each other rather than fixing the bugs they should be fixing. If I had my way we would not ship this app. But then we wouldn’t be compatible with Win 3.1 and we have to do that.
The book also mentions email,
] It was a neat ploy, since colleagues mainly conversed via electronic mail, or e-mail. No matter Whitmer’s whereabouts, his e-mail address remained “Chuckwh.” At Microsoft, e-mail was the most trusted and intimate means of exchanging messages.
> Chat did not exist, but wouldn't make sense anyway.
Perhaps not to you, but for others it had been around time for some time, along with its problems. Microsoft, for example, distributed WinChat starting with Windows for Workgroups in 1992.
Here's a description of events which took place at Microsoft no later than early 1993, as described in the 1996 book 'Showstopper! : the breakneckrace to create Windows NT and the next generation at Microsoft', https://archive.org/details/showstopperbreak0000zach_p7g1/pa... :
] WinChat was a variant on electronic mail; it allowed two or more people to type messages back and forth as if they spoke on the telephone. These “interactive” conversations were quite popular and illustrated the benefits of a computer network. It was important to test WinChat because NT was supposed to incorporate all Windows networking features. In his memo, Manheim was informing the team that they could use WinChat if they wanted. While his group was testing WinChat, others using it might also turn up problems.
] Manheim’s announcement bothered Cutler. He felt WinChat would distract people from bug fixing. He didn’t want it used. “This isn’t a fun app. It is a waste of time,” he wrote to Manheim. “VMS had this program 10 years ago. It was a waste of time then and it is a waste of time now. Anyone I see wasting their time with [WinChat] is apt to get some verbal abuse.”
] ... Using Winchat “is not a waste of time,” Manheim wrote, his anger rising. “It’s part of the product that will be used by the customers and if it’s trash we'll get shit for it.
] ... I have direct experience with this kind of application at Digital. It is easy to get everyone to sit around and type at each other rather than fixing the bugs they should be fixing. If I had my way we would not ship this app. But then we wouldn’t be compatible with Win 3.1 and we have to do that.
The book also mentions email,
] It was a neat ploy, since colleagues mainly conversed via electronic mail, or e-mail. No matter Whitmer’s whereabouts, his e-mail address remained “Chuckwh.” At Microsoft, e-mail was the most trusted and intimate means of exchanging messages.