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Pructus Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
Steve Jobs
Xerox PARC
The Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center, known as Xerox PARC, had been established in 1970 to create a spawning ground for digital ideas. It was safely located, for better and for worse, three thousand miles from the commercial pressures of Xerox corporate headquarters in Connecticut. Among its visionaries was the scientist Alan Kay, who had two great maxims that Jobs embraced: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” and “People who are serious about software should make their own hardware.” Kay pushed the vision of a small personal computer, dubbed the “Dynabook,” that would be easy enough for children to use. So Xerox PARC’s engineers began to develop user-friendly graphics that could replace all of the command lines and DOS prompts that made computer screens intimidating. The metaphor they came up with was that of a desktop. The screen could have many documents and folders on it, and you could use a mouse to point and click on the on-e you wanted to use.
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Above is an excerpt from recently published Steve Jobs biography by Isaacson.
The understading of the underlined sentence is becoming an issue of hot debate in Korea, in terms of whether the sentence was properly translated into Korean or not.
People disagree on what the "a desktop" refers to. Some poeple say it refers to the top of a plain desk, i.e. the top of the physical desk that we use everyday as a piece of furniture.
Some other people say that it refers to the computer screen. In fact, all the dictionaries say that "desktop" has the meaning of "computer screen".
I wonder how native speakers understand this one.
Maybe it doesnt matter, resulting in the same interpretation of the writer's intention.
The Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center, known as Xerox PARC, had been established in 1970 to create a spawning ground for digital ideas. It was safely located, for better and for worse, three thousand miles from the commercial pressures of Xerox corporate headquarters in Connecticut. Among its visionaries was the scientist Alan Kay, who had two great maxims that Jobs embraced: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” and “People who are serious about software should make their own hardware.” Kay pushed the vision of a small personal computer, dubbed the “Dynabook,” that would be easy enough for children to use. So Xerox PARC’s engineers began to develop user-friendly graphics that could replace all of the command lines and DOS prompts that made computer screens intimidating. The metaphor they came up with was that of a desktop. The screen could have many documents and folders on it, and you could use a mouse to point and click on the on-e you wanted to use.
*** *** ***
Above is an excerpt from recently published Steve Jobs biography by Isaacson.
The understading of the underlined sentence is becoming an issue of hot debate in Korea, in terms of whether the sentence was properly translated into Korean or not.
People disagree on what the "a desktop" refers to. Some poeple say it refers to the top of a plain desk, i.e. the top of the physical desk that we use everyday as a piece of furniture.
Some other people say that it refers to the computer screen. In fact, all the dictionaries say that "desktop" has the meaning of "computer screen".
I wonder how native speakers understand this one.
Maybe it doesnt matter, resulting in the same interpretation of the writer's intention.
Top answer
To me, it's clear that they were thinking of the top of a plain piece of furniture - a desk - which we had been using since offices were invented! The idea was that you could spread all of your work out on the top of a desk and then click on the document you wanted to work on (and bring it forward - also a Xerox term). The metaphore was the top of a typical desk - with piles of files, documents and books at hand to assist in completing your work.
- To me, it's clear that they were thinking of the top of a plain piece of furniture - a desk - which we had been using since offices were invented!
- The idea was that you could spread all of your work out on the top of a desk and then click on the document you wanted to work on (and bring it forward - also a Xerox term).
- The metaphore was the top of a typical desk - with piles of files, documents and books at hand to assist in completing your work.
- John
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5 Answers
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To me, it's clear that they were thinking of the top of a plain piece of furniture - a desk - which we had been using since offices were invented! The idea was that you could spread all of your work out on the top of a desk and then click on the document you wanted to work on (and bring it forward - also a Xerox term).
The metaphore was the top of a typical desk - with piles of fil
The metaphore was the top of a typical desk - with piles of fil
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But, after second thought....
The metaphor they came up with was that of a desktop. The screen could have many documents and folders on it, and you could use a mouse to point and click on the one you wanted to use.
If we understand "a desktop" as meaning a plain piece of furniture, then how can we understand the next part, "you could use a mouse to point and clic
The metaphor they came up with was that of a desktop. The screen could have many documents and folders on it, and you could use a mouse to point and click on the one you wanted to use.
If we understand "a desktop" as meaning a plain piece of furniture, then how can we understand the next part, "you could use a mouse to point and clic
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Pructus: Metaphore - they were looking for a metaphone (for the already existing computer screens) - a metaphore that would be easy for users to grasp and follow the concept of files on a desk, and (instead of your hands) an electronic "hand" that would rearange and bring to the top of your desk the document or whatever you wanted to work on.
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