Byte vol.8 №12 December 1983

Columns
36 Keep Power-Line Pollution Out of Ybur Computer by Steve Ciarcia I When lightning struck his home and did S3000 worth of damage. Ciarcia decided to strike back with this month’s Circuit Cellar project
48 BYTE West Coast: Microsoft Windows by Phil Lemmons / Microsoft Windows lets you test the effectiveness of the desktop metaphor and the mouse.
59 User’s Column: Buddy, Can You Spare a Door Latch? by Jerry Pournelle I What to do when your disk-drive door is on the fritz and other comedies of errors ar Chaos Manor.
Themes
100 Easy Software by Phil Lemmons I Making software easy to use is simpler to say than co do This month’s theme articles explore a variety of approaches to user-interface technology and sample programmers’ attempts at making software do more with less effort.
103 An Introduction to Integrated Software by Dash Chang / Concurrency, shared technology and functronal integration are three ways of integrating software.
113 Presentation and Form in User-Interface Architecture by John M. Carroll / With rhe help of a test group, the author and his colleagues developed an interface that facilitates ease of use and ease of learning.
127 Why Is Software So Hard to Use? by Sam Edwards I Chances are it’s the software’s fault and not yours.
143 Walt Disney and User-Oriented Software by Paul Heckel I Software designers can learn a few things from Mickey Mouse about communicating ideas.
155 Making Life Easier for Professional and Novice Programmers by Andy Rope, Geoff Kates, and Dan Fineberg / A debugger that “animates” the program’s source code on the screen and lets the programmer engage in what-if analysis to find logic errors can drastically reduce debugging rime.
161 Simplify, Simplify, Simplify by Martin Dean / In an attempt to design a truly easy-to-use database manager, the author disregarded nifty features and clever, complex functions in favor of starting fresh.
177 Integrating Voice in the Office World by Robert T. Nicholson / The ability to record a spoken message and store it digitally on a computer system makes possible a whole new range of applications.
189 The Starburst User Interface by Steven Vandor I This software package helps you build efficient, powerful menus.
199 The Complete Information-Management System by Michael J. Brown I The ideal information-management package maximizes hardware attributes and minimizes user interaction.
210 The Allegory of Software by Tom Houston / Tired of the same old desktop metaphor? Maybe the digital kitchen is more up your alley.
218 The New Interface Technology by Robert W. Warfield and George M. White / A close-up look at mice, windows, and other software and hardware developments that make computer systems easier to use.
234 Trackball Interfacing Techniques for Microprocessors by Edward W. Andrews I This simple hardware/software interface device is easy to adapt to your interactive personal computer applications