MX: Reading Response #1

In response to the reading "The Interface", I found some interesting connections between the old and the new. First off, the connection between the use of a grid system in the beginning interface production and the existence of that same idea in new technology like GPS systems and certain phone interfaces. This is the way the interface started and the influence it had to the interface strongly supports its existence still today. The printed word was one of the first things to become digitalized form of media. Text became a metalanguage of media, a code in which other media is represented. For instance one uses code of text to format an HTML page, or the coordinates of three-dimensional objects, as well as pixel values. The connection between the printed word being the first thing to communicate data in the form of a structured page, originated from the codex, is being implemented into the interface as well. When Apple introduced the idea of being able to stack pages, like a book, in which each page is never ending and you can scroll individually through each page was revolutionary to the interface. Run time is where data is created on the fly, and is constantly changing depending on the users input. This can happen in a variety of ways; procedural computer graphics, formal language systems, AI and AL programming. In our portfolio site we will want to use the idea of Run time when building, keeping in mind that new information is going to be dynamically added to it. The idea that the printed word is used to communicate content through hyper-linking is connected with how we interact with a newspaper. Newspapers are dominant in text, images, and graphs with symbols linking to other pages within that newspaper. Today we see this a lot in hyper-linking pages in a nonlinear fashion.