> "I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone".
> I said that after a frustrating attempt to use a "feature-rich" telephone sometime around 1990. I'm sure the sentiment wasn't original, and probably not even the overall phrasing; someone must have thought of that before me.
edit to agree: obv Stroustrup in 1990 was not talking about your cell phone.
You had help, everything was explained in manuals, they rejected invalid outputs. Now everything is close eyes, press enter and pray it works.
Siemens ISDX was what I worked with. To build a new corporate extension was something like option 5-2-1-1 ext code Y 2-4-7 and then 9 to confirm.
Simpler times.
MicroCenter (by me, at least) still uses what looks like some terminal interface for checkout and such in stores.
It's a riot cause it's all young kids and all the keyboards are RGB gamer ones. I've never seen a faster checkout at a register.
Just recently I wanted to change the default AI assistant from Gemini to Perplexity and after having found the option once, somehow, it took me ages to find it again.
Still, I'm in my early 40s and I find myself baffled when I help my mom with her iPhone. I've been an Android guy ever since that was an option.