Interface is a modern word for a very old thing. The OED gives its first use in 1882 as a scientific term. The modern usage only dates from the 1960s. Language is our interface with one another and, to a limited extent, with dogs and parrots, which have been experimentally shown capable of understanding human language. The calendar markings Marshack detected on 30,000 year-old bones were at once both interface and recording. (See the post: Embodiments of Memory.) Interfaces have been around for as long as we have been fully human, if not longer.
Recently interfaces, the apparatus that allows us to control and receive feedback from our creations, have forced themselves on my consciousness. They don't get much attention in history. They are not entirely neglected, but often relegated to specialist niches. Outside of the history of technology, it seems to me that interfaces appear most frequently in naval and aviation history. Nevertheless they are important both because they constrain what we can do, and directly mediate between the mind and the environment.
Interfaces do not just pop into existence. They evolve and change over time, their characteristics adapting to the needs of the moment and granting us new capabilities. We can see this in the early history of aircraft. We are used to airplanes controlled by a combination of a joystick or yolk (a semicircular wheel attached to a moveable column) and pedals, but this was not the case in the earliest machines. The Wrights for many years used a harness connecting the pilot by wires to the control surfaces and wings (which warped or bent), an ingenious system for translating the movements of the body, as well as hands and feet, into the motion of the airplane. This allowed the involvement of the whole body in control and reception of feedback, but it was difficult to master. It also allowed the Wrights to build highly unstable machines that were difficult to fly. A more easily mastered system was needed.
Another early system involved two wheels, one controlling pitch (movement of the nose up and down) and the other wheel roll (movement of the wingtips up and down), combined with rudder pedals for steering the machine. The use of three separate controls required a higher level of coordination than the joystick.
What the joystick did was combine pitch and roll control into an easily mastered interface, making learning and flying easier. (Later, of course, machine gun triggers would be added for military aircraft further unifying the controls.) The joystick was also capable of numerous improvements and adaptation to other purposes. To us the joystick may seem an obvious device for controlling aircraft, weapons, and anything else where delicate or accurate movements are involved, but it emerged slowly, and anonymously, appearing by 1910.
The joystick represents some of the most important characteristics of good interfaces. It simplifies control and feedback and is easier to learn than comparable systems. It has limitations, in this case, requiring more stable aircraft than the Wrights had constructed, and provided a narrower scope for feedback than had their system.
Before I wander too far, let me sum up. We need to look at interfaces in history because they constrain our abilities at the same time that they enable new ones. They take time to evolve and their evolution may have serious implications for how a device is used. They also allow the transfer of a skill from ourselves to the machine. These are points I hope to take up in later posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment