Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff dot com Either everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Obama. Today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about something that a listeners sent in. This
Speaker 1: is JP from New Jersey who wrote, Hey, Jonathan and Lauren,
Speaker 1: I wanted to see if you guys would consider doing
Speaker 1: a podcast about history success, parentheses, Sara kas and closed
Speaker 1: their entheses, and eventual downfall of Microsoft. Bob keep up
Speaker 1: the great shows. Thanks JP. We're gonna tackle Bob and
Speaker 1: we're gonna wrestle him to the ground and probably give
Speaker 1: him noogies. But then so did the rest of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't know what Bob is, don't feel badly
Speaker 1: about it. It was one of the biggest flops in
Speaker 1: Microsoft history, I think, one of the biggest flops and
Speaker 1: kind of history period. Time did this list of the
Speaker 1: fifty worst inventions ever Time Magazine. Time Magazine, Yeah, back
Speaker 1: in back, and Bob was on there. I mean, along
Speaker 1: with like tanning beds and hydrogen blimps. Yeah, hydrogen blimps
Speaker 1: not such a great thing Microsoft. Bob possibly worse. It's
Speaker 1: killed killed fewer people killed fewer people, but people dreams
Speaker 1: died that day when Microsoft Bob came out that this
Speaker 1: was an interface for Windows three point one, and then
Speaker 1: later came out, yeah it was. It was also for
Speaker 1: Windows in t So here's the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: We're talking about era where the personal computer is starting
Speaker 1: to get some serious traction but still is not in
Speaker 1: most homes. In fact, Microsoft, when they were talking about
Speaker 1: designing Bob and the launch of Bob, they were predicting
Speaker 1: that by I think it was seven that PCs would
Speaker 1: be in forty six percent of households, and and and
Speaker 1: this was that this was a forty six percent in
Speaker 1: the incredible future. The idea of being is a really
Speaker 1: big number that Microsoft is crazy to think that that
Speaker 1: many people would have computers. Well, the problem that Microsoft
Speaker 1: had identified as something that they needed to solve with
Speaker 1: brute force is that that someone who is unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: computers might find the operation of such a device to
Speaker 1: be intimidating and difficult, and the learning curve might be
Speaker 1: too too steep for your average person who was not
Speaker 1: already familiar with computers. And certainly before Windows three point
Speaker 1: one came out, when it was just doss on say
Speaker 1: just doss operation. You know, I'm simply saying that it
Speaker 1: was perhaps not the most friendly thing to greet a
Speaker 1: person just just lines of code on a screen. I
Speaker 1: didn't need a friend, I needed an operating system. That's
Speaker 1: what Does gave me. And that's kind of that is
Speaker 1: kind of what what McIntosh was doing at the time.
Speaker 1: And and and Apple was was kind of kicking a
Speaker 1: lot of button that arena because they were giving people
Speaker 1: something more friendly, more user friendly, and a little bit
Speaker 1: more intuitive, right and keep in minding of course, Apple
Speaker 1: had a big jump on other computers because the Apple
Speaker 1: to a very popular personal computer among mostly hobbyists and
Speaker 1: people who were interested in computers. Because again that was
Speaker 1: that was in the line command days, we had the
Speaker 1: type stuff in is when Apple introduced the Macintosh and
Speaker 1: the graphics user interface. Apple of course was not the
Speaker 1: the company to invent the graphic excuser interface, but they
Speaker 1: were the first ones to really successfully implement it in
Speaker 1: a personal computer platform, and people liked it. It was
Speaker 1: one of those things where things just made more sense.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was a little more intuitive
Speaker 1: than having to type and memorize all these different commands
Speaker 1: that you would type into just get your computer to
Speaker 1: do stuff. Well, Microsoft wanted to kind of um create
Speaker 1: its own graphic unit user interface, and that was the
Speaker 1: genesis of the Windows program. But even then they thought,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a way of making this simpler for
Speaker 1: the average person. Now, to really look at the development
Speaker 1: of Bob, you have to go back a few years
Speaker 1: before Bob was a thing. And so back in nine
Speaker 1: Microsoft launched a program called Microsoft Publisher. It's a desktop
Speaker 1: publishing program and it was the first program from Microsoft
Speaker 1: that included Wizards. Now, wizards are not you know, it's
Speaker 1: not Harry Potter coming out and waving a wan saying
Speaker 1: regard um leviosa or a laho mora or uh avauta cadavera.
Speaker 1: It's instead a little a little help pop up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's supposed to guide you through a complicated process step
Speaker 1: by step. So this was a big help for someone
Speaker 1: who maybe was not familiar with this particular process or
Speaker 1: very rarely used it. And uh and could just follow
Speaker 1: along on the directions as opposed to having to thumb
Speaker 1: through a four page manual, right and and and Microsoft
Speaker 1: Publisher was was pretty popular. It was designed by Karen
Speaker 1: Fries and Barry Lynnette, Yeah, and Karen Fryes is going
Speaker 1: to become important in a little bit and uh. And
Speaker 1: right when when they were you know, they had finished
Speaker 1: with publisher, it was out in the world, it was
Speaker 1: doing great, and they were like, what else can we do?
Speaker 1: What is our next project? We want to keep helping newbs.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Neubs was a yeah, no, but
Speaker 1: that's that's that's exactly you know, we're going to translate
Speaker 1: it for the kids of today. We're really the kids
Speaker 1: of about six seven years ago. But anyway, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: they wanted to continue to develop software that would help
Speaker 1: people who otherwise would be unfamiliar and maybe intimidated by software.
Speaker 1: So that's when they started to look into the possibility
Speaker 1: of developing a full graphics user interface designed with these
Speaker 1: nudes in mind. Originally they were calling it Data Wizard,
Speaker 1: and then that eventually had the code name Utopia, but
Speaker 1: by the time it was finally going to launch, it
Speaker 1: had of course changed to Microsoft Bob is designed as
Speaker 1: an alternative interface, as as Lauren said earlier, for Windows
Speaker 1: three point one and even Windows and Team It's supported
Speaker 1: programs designed for Bob, so it supported its own programs
Speaker 1: designed for that operating system or rather that user interface. Uh.
Speaker 1: It also supported Windows programs and supported DOS programs. So
Speaker 1: the idea was that this would be able to support
Speaker 1: anything that a person would want to run on a PC.
Speaker 1: So but but you know, through through this filter that
Speaker 1: would allow people who are unfamiliar with computers to to
Speaker 1: set everything up the way they would want it, you know,
Speaker 1: with with minimum complication. Right. So, so Karen Fries became
Speaker 1: the the project lead for this particular project. The lead
Speaker 1: developer was a guy named Gabe Newell. Do you recognize
Speaker 1: that name? Gabe Newbell. Newell was one of the co
Speaker 1: founders of Valve. Yeah. So Gabe Newell also, uh, someone
Speaker 1: who in his post Microsoft years, which are the last
Speaker 1: like two and a half decades, has been, um, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I should they the last two decades, has
Speaker 1: been more than a little critical of his old company. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's He's definitely leveled some pretty hefty criticisms against some
Speaker 1: major Microsoft releases. But he worked on on Microsoft Bob.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what kind of left a certain, uh bad
Speaker 1: taste in his mouth or something. I can see that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the the person at Microsoft who was kind of
Speaker 1: overseeing the whole thing. Who was guiding it was uh. Well,
Speaker 1: when she first started working on the project, her name
Speaker 1: was Melinda French, but then kind of in the middle
Speaker 1: of it, she became Melinda Gates. Yes, so Bill Gates's wife.
Speaker 1: Melinda was the head of the whole marketing marketing side.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, she was essentially kind of like
Speaker 1: the face. She was a cheerleader and it certainly yeah,
Speaker 1: which which led some people to suggest, perhaps snarkily or
Speaker 1: maybe not even perhaps snarkily definitely that the reason why
Speaker 1: Bob went as far as it did was because of
Speaker 1: who was behind it, as opposed to the merits of
Speaker 1: the operating system. But let's be fair, the idea behind
Speaker 1: Bob was solid. It was a solid idea of let's
Speaker 1: create something that is very accessible and intuitive and comforting,
Speaker 1: and and they try to use some really hard data
Speaker 1: to support their design decisions. They actually uh contacted a
Speaker 1: couple of professors from Stanford to act as project consultants,
Speaker 1: Clifford Nas and Byron Reeves, and they their their area
Speaker 1: of specially it was figuring out, well, how how do
Speaker 1: people communicate, how do they access information, how do they
Speaker 1: process information? And their point of view is that the
Speaker 1: more natural you can make an interaction, the more readily
Speaker 1: someone will understand it and adapt and want to interact
Speaker 1: with it. Exactly, So you have to create an environment
Speaker 1: that it just it feels natural and makes sense. Now,
Speaker 1: that's obviously a very a very clear motivation. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we've seen that in products since I think the
Speaker 1: iPad is a great example of that. It was a
Speaker 1: design where it's very intuitive to use. You give an
Speaker 1: iPad to a kid, that kid masters the iPad and
Speaker 1: no time flat, without ever having to ask how something works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've they've they've done those those great studies in in
Speaker 1: Africa with kids who can't even read, have never been
Speaker 1: exposed to anything like this before, and they just take
Speaker 1: off with it. Yeah. So I mean that that's sort
Speaker 1: of the idea here. They wanted to design something that
Speaker 1: had that same sort of approach and appeal so that
Speaker 1: they could help people who otherwise would be intimidated by computers.
Speaker 1: So on January seven, Bill Gates took the stage at
Speaker 1: c E S and unveiled Bob. He showed off also
Speaker 1: a future project that was Bob related, called p D,
Speaker 1: which was a c G I parrot that could respond
Speaker 1: to verbal requests. And then on March thirty one, they
Speaker 1: released Microsoft Bob Ah. The full retail price if you're
Speaker 1: buying the full thing was as but it mostly sold
Speaker 1: that around ninety, which still pretty expensive soft. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and by comparison today, due to inflation, that that would
Speaker 1: be worth about a hundred and forty so whereas Windows
Speaker 1: eight costs about ninety on the market. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: it definitely was a little expensive. It said on the
Speaker 1: box that did not come with a manual, but it
Speaker 1: came with a manual, or at least it was called
Speaker 1: Bob's Magazine, so it was trying to be packaged not
Speaker 1: as manual, but it was a twenty nine page list
Speaker 1: of instructions. And uh, did you hear about Microsoft Press
Speaker 1: and the book that they published. I did not what happened?
Speaker 1: They published a book called At Home with Bob At
Speaker 1: Home with Bob, which was a companion guide, and it
Speaker 1: was two hundred and ten pages long. Goodness, migracious, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of guide for something that doesn't need a
Speaker 1: guy tot all. Yeah, that's when you don't need a guide,
Speaker 1: you go wholeheartedly down to your Microsoft I teased them.
Speaker 1: I certainly couldn't build a graphics user interface at all.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what Bob was really like? What? What, how? How? How?
Speaker 1: What kind of operating our user interface was it? Just
Speaker 1: just for perspective, real quick, um, Bob was was dead
Speaker 1: in the water by early To give you an idea
Speaker 1: of how well this went, Microsoft pulled the plug in
Speaker 1: nineties six. So when it went less than a full
Speaker 1: year before, Microsoft said all right, this is this is
Speaker 1: not gonna work. And we'll get into why they made
Speaker 1: that decision. And some people might even argue that it
Speaker 1: was kind of a like the deck was stacked against them,
Speaker 1: that that Bob was not as horrible as it but
Speaker 1: it was given credit for I disagree for one major reason,
Speaker 1: but I'll get into that in the in a little
Speaker 1: bit later in the podcast. So, so here we have
Speaker 1: the idea. The whole idea is let's create a graphics
Speaker 1: user interface. It's very relatable and easy to use and
Speaker 1: and intuitive. How did Microsoft go about it? What was Bob?
Speaker 1: Bob was a it was a how it was? It was?
Speaker 1: You you enter Bob's house, and in Bob's house there
Speaker 1: are visual representations of everything that you would hypothetically want
Speaker 1: to do with your computer exactly, Like like there's a
Speaker 1: there's a living room that you're looking into, right, so
Speaker 1: and so Instead of a desktop where you have icons
Speaker 1: that you click on, you're looking into a clip art
Speaker 1: living room. Vector graphics. Yes, two and fifty six colors,
Speaker 1: super fancy. Yeah. If if you don't, if you've never
Speaker 1: seen pictures, link them, it's spectacular. Anyone who's used any
Speaker 1: of the old Microsoft Office products that had lots and
Speaker 1: lots of clip art in them, and you've looked through
Speaker 1: those clip arts and you've thought, wow, that's what Bob
Speaker 1: was made up of. And there was a lot of
Speaker 1: animation involved. Every everything was kind of cute. See, yes,
Speaker 1: everything was very cartoonish. And you have a personal assistant,
Speaker 1: a series of personal assistants, and the one that it
Speaker 1: came the standard one, the one that would just be
Speaker 1: there as soon as you started up, was Rover Retriever.
Speaker 1: The personal assistance would later come into play in versions
Speaker 1: of Microsoft Office, like Microsoft Office nineties seven. We'll get
Speaker 1: into that too. So, um, anyway, you're that your guide
Speaker 1: when you first start off as Rover Retriever. You could
Speaker 1: change him later and I think that'll be fun to
Speaker 1: talk about when we get into the features list. It's exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got I got a couple of things I want
Speaker 1: to say about some of those those guys. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, I want to I want to talk
Speaker 1: about what it was like to first enter. So so
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm gonna paint you a picture with words.
Speaker 1: So you you activate Microsoft Bob. You know, you've installed
Speaker 1: it on your computer, assuming your computer could run it.
Speaker 1: We'll get into that too, And when it first starts,
Speaker 1: you are greeted by the sight of a big red door.
Speaker 1: And in the center of that big red door is
Speaker 1: a gold door knocker, and that door knocker says Microsoft
Speaker 1: Bob on it. So you have to click on the knocker,
Speaker 1: which then makes the knocker knock on the door. And
Speaker 1: you didn't have to have a sound card with Bob,
Speaker 1: but it was recommended because there were many noises, so
Speaker 1: many noises, including one such your personal assistant would occasionally
Speaker 1: make at you. But you would knock on the door
Speaker 1: and Rover retriever shows up and says, uh, hey, s
Speaker 1: you're trying to break into my house. Actually, he says,
Speaker 1: I know you're coming in. Uh click on who you
Speaker 1: are and a little list pops up. Now on your
Speaker 1: first visit, there's no one. You can't select a name
Speaker 1: because you haven't gotten and registered one yet, so the
Speaker 1: only choice that's there is guest. So guest was there
Speaker 1: so that you could let a friend log in without
Speaker 1: having to create a full account and use your computer
Speaker 1: to do whatever, the same way that Windows works today. Right,
Speaker 1: so you could click guests. But if you did click guests, uh,
Speaker 1: then you would get another message from Rover whould say,
Speaker 1: are you sure you don't want to go ahead and
Speaker 1: create a profile? Well I didn't really see that option earlier,
Speaker 1: but sure, why not? Let's let's let's make a profile.
Speaker 1: So Rover would then ask if you are new to
Speaker 1: the home or if you had once been on the
Speaker 1: list but now can no longer find your name on
Speaker 1: the list because one of the things you can do
Speaker 1: is add and remove people, or really you can remove
Speaker 1: people from the list once you've joined it. So this
Speaker 1: would be something like, let's say that you know you've
Speaker 1: kicked your no good son out of the house because
Speaker 1: he's thirty four and really he needs to go and
Speaker 1: make his own way in the world. Now, I'm just
Speaker 1: using this as a hypothetical. I don't have a kid,
Speaker 1: and if I had a kid, it was thirty four.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of explained to do. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: you kicked your thirty four year old son out of
Speaker 1: the house, and you've changed it. You've removed him from
Speaker 1: Microsoft Bob, so if he does come back, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to use the computer. That would be
Speaker 1: the reason for that, right, So you would have to
Speaker 1: answer that question like are you new or were you
Speaker 1: essentially kicked off? So let's say that you're new. You know,
Speaker 1: this is your first time using Bob. You haven't alienated
Speaker 1: yourself from your friends and family yet, So you click
Speaker 1: on new. Then it asks you to enter in your
Speaker 1: first name, your preferred name, your last name, your hometown,
Speaker 1: your birthday, and your gender, which you could set to
Speaker 1: not telling. But every yea, every single field required you
Speaker 1: gotta film and and this will come back later because
Speaker 1: these little these little cartoon guides needed to know things
Speaker 1: about you so that they could talk to you about Stuffy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did, So you filled this part out. Now you're
Speaker 1: prompted to create a password for your account. And one
Speaker 1: of the funny things I thought about this was that
Speaker 1: it actually explains to you what the asterisks are as
Speaker 1: you type in your password. You know how the password
Speaker 1: field starts filling up with asterisks, because if it showed
Speaker 1: you in plain text what the password was, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be very secure. Yeah, someone staying behind you could see it,
Speaker 1: and so it actually explains that concept in But again,
Speaker 1: Bob's design for people who are brand new to compute, right, No, no,
Speaker 1: I I can see someone, um you know, for for example,
Speaker 1: my grandmother plays a lot of solitaire, but is mostly
Speaker 1: confused about other things on computers that could be useful. Right,
Speaker 1: So so yeah, if you're sitting there thinking, wait, I
Speaker 1: didn't hit the asterisk button, why is that popping up,
Speaker 1: it would actually explain it to me. It sounds silly
Speaker 1: simply because I've been using computers for so long it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to even imagine that. But then again,
Speaker 1: I was not the target market for Bob. Uh, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure who was. So then after that point, after
Speaker 1: you created it, you had to type in your password
Speaker 1: a second time. Uh, And if you misstype the password
Speaker 1: the second time, you would get a prompt telling you
Speaker 1: that it did not match the first password, and you
Speaker 1: had to try again that's going to become really important
Speaker 1: in a little while. So next you would then, once
Speaker 1: you get through the password creation process, you would enter
Speaker 1: in your actual address and time zone, so not just
Speaker 1: your hometown, your full address. And again it's required, so
Speaker 1: you had to put the whole thing in there and
Speaker 1: the time zone that you are in. Then you would
Speaker 1: have to create at least one private room. So remember
Speaker 1: Bob is a house. Most of those rooms in that
Speaker 1: house are public when it starts off, which means that
Speaker 1: anyone who joins on your computer can access those public rooms.
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to create a private room where
Speaker 1: only your stuff would be, like you know, programs that
Speaker 1: you only want to have access to, you could do that.
Speaker 1: Um So, if if you wanted to access a private room,
Speaker 1: you would have to be logged in under that I
Speaker 1: d so uh Lauren would not be able to go
Speaker 1: into my room because of that, except we'll talk about
Speaker 1: how she totally could do that pretty soon. And then
Speaker 1: finally the last step would be that you would it
Speaker 1: would ask you if it wanted to import other programs
Speaker 1: besides the Bob programs that came standard with Microsoft Bob.
Speaker 1: So I would ask if you wanted to import Dawson
Speaker 1: Windows programs. Uh. That step is absolutely necessary. If you
Speaker 1: had completely lost your mind to decide to use Bob
Speaker 1: as your graphics user interface for everything and say I'm
Speaker 1: not using any other interface at all, just Bob, you
Speaker 1: would need to be able to import those other programs.
Speaker 1: So that's the that's the process of creating your Bob account.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the the the different features
Speaker 1: of Bob, the software that came with it, some of
Speaker 1: these uh, some of these assistants everything. Once that door
Speaker 1: opens and uh, and I'll start off with the big
Speaker 1: security flaw right after we take a short break, all
Speaker 1: right back to Bob. So you know I mentioned that
Speaker 1: there was a big security flaw. So Lauren, UM, let's
Speaker 1: say that you you have got Microsoft Bob. I've got
Speaker 1: a profile on there. Password, You've created a profile, You've
Speaker 1: created a password. Whenever you need to log in, you
Speaker 1: have to put your password in and you have one
Speaker 1: of the one of the pieces of software and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about them in a minute, but one of
Speaker 1: the pieces of software there's is Bob is Bob's Checkbook.
Speaker 1: The idea that's a financial software so that you can
Speaker 1: you know manage your home finances. So presumably there could
Speaker 1: be some pretty pretty private information in that. And let's
Speaker 1: say you've you've thought of that, and you've actually put
Speaker 1: that particular program in your private, private room. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not in the public room, so I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: just happen across it. If it were in a public room,
Speaker 1: that would be bad. Um. But you've created your password
Speaker 1: and everything, and then I think, huh, I really want
Speaker 1: to learn what Lauren's bank account number is, so I
Speaker 1: try and log in as Lauren. When you try and
Speaker 1: log in and you don't have the right password, after
Speaker 1: three attempts, it says, I, you know that's not the
Speaker 1: right password. Do you want to reset your password? And
Speaker 1: you say yes. Instead of it then taking you to
Speaker 1: like sending an email or linking you somehow, there's because
Speaker 1: it's looking for nubs. It's saying, well, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: just let you reset your password right now. So I
Speaker 1: could then reset Lauren's password, so not only would I
Speaker 1: have access to her account, I would lock her out
Speaker 1: have access to my account anymore. Wow, that's until you
Speaker 1: tried to enter the password three times, and then you
Speaker 1: could reset yourself, and so it essentially just become the
Speaker 1: two of us resetting that password over and over and
Speaker 1: over again until you gave up and said, I do
Speaker 1: not want this on my computer. Huge, huge security flaw.
Speaker 1: Nothing is private. Well yeah, that's uh, that's at the idea.
Speaker 1: I had not heard about that part of it, and
Speaker 1: that is very special. And I wouldn't even need to
Speaker 1: have an account. I mean, all I would need is
Speaker 1: access to your computer because just going in as a guest,
Speaker 1: I could do that. And uh yeah, so there was
Speaker 1: no such thing as privacy or security with Bob. It
Speaker 1: had this just ridiculously massive vulnerability. Uh. And you might
Speaker 1: as well not even have a password system at that point,
Speaker 1: because if all it takes is three failed log ins
Speaker 1: and then you can reset the password, that's that's like
Speaker 1: having no password at all. Uh. Same sort of problems
Speaker 1: existed with removing people from a list. So let's say that, um,
Speaker 1: let's let's have an interesting hypothetical situation here. Let's say
Speaker 1: that for some reason, how stuff works decides to switch
Speaker 1: completely over to Microsoft Bob and we all have a
Speaker 1: shared environment. That sounds like the worst thing. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about more reasons why there's for us in a second.
Speaker 1: But all right, so we have a shared environment. One
Speaker 1: of the things anyone can do, whether they are logged
Speaker 1: into Microsoft Bob or not, is remove someone from that list.
Speaker 1: So I could go in and say, Josh, creepy hands Clark,
Speaker 1: you do not get access to the computer anymore. Delete Josh,
Speaker 1: even as a guest could say, guess what, Jonathan, neither
Speaker 1: can you delete? Or guess what job that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: log in as you password, password, password reset? You know,
Speaker 1: it's just ridiculous and um. And part of the supposed
Speaker 1: appeal of Bob was that you could change the decor
Speaker 1: of any room. Right, you can make a room look
Speaker 1: the way you wanted based upon the clippard that you're
Speaker 1: haun available. They had windows in these rooms, so you
Speaker 1: can change the scenery outside. Yeah, you can make it
Speaker 1: like a space or field pretty unset. Yeah. Again, keep
Speaker 1: in mind this is all clip art based stuff. But
Speaker 1: that meant that anyone else could do the same thing,
Speaker 1: especially especially in the public rooms. So public rooms, anyone
Speaker 1: could go in there, move stuff around, change the layout,
Speaker 1: delete things, put new things in, which means that if
Speaker 1: Lauren lugs in and she says, oh, this doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense, I'm gonna rearrange everything so that makes sense
Speaker 1: to to the way my brain works. And she lays
Speaker 1: that out and an eyeglog and I'm like, this doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense, and I change it all around so
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me. Lauren lugs back in. It's
Speaker 1: changed completely from the last time she used it, and
Speaker 1: it's going every time someone uses it and changes it,
Speaker 1: it's going to be affective. Now in the example I'm using,
Speaker 1: I'm suggesting that somehow we all have a networked user
Speaker 1: interface that is as persistent across all our computers. In reality,
Speaker 1: we're talking about one machine one one PC in a home.
Speaker 1: But if it's a family PC and everyone logs into it,
Speaker 1: then the kids could sit there and say like, I
Speaker 1: don't like that chair, delete and uh. Same thing for
Speaker 1: the programs. The programs will be represented by various objects
Speaker 1: right right. Either the main ones were by objects in
Speaker 1: the room, and anything that you added in from Windows
Speaker 1: or daughter, etcetera would be a little file box with
Speaker 1: an icon on the front of it. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you wanted to to activate any of those, uh, those
Speaker 1: main programs, you would have to click on the icon,
Speaker 1: but you could actually change the size of the icon.
Speaker 1: So if you're if you thought, you know, that checkbook
Speaker 1: needs to be three times the size that it currently is,
Speaker 1: you could totally do that. So it was chaos. You know,
Speaker 1: if you had more than one user using that computer,
Speaker 1: there was no guarantee that your experience was going to
Speaker 1: be remotely similar from one instance to the next, So
Speaker 1: that was a big issue as well. Um, that's also
Speaker 1: less intuitive. I mean, if you're if you're designing this
Speaker 1: for someone who really doesn't know what they're doing, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that that would be helpful. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and once you had that that profile created in your
Speaker 1: inside the Home of Microsoft Bob, you had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to take the home tour. The home tour did not
Speaker 1: leave the room you were in, so whatever room you
Speaker 1: were in, you would stay in there for the home
Speaker 1: tour and it would get go through about sixteen prompts
Speaker 1: of information. Uh. So we had someone on Facebook asked
Speaker 1: us a question specifically saying, is this where Clippy came from? Yes?
Speaker 1: And no. The assistance that you could get in Bob
Speaker 1: were acting very much in the same way that Clippy
Speaker 1: on Microsoft Office ninety seven and word would perform. You know,
Speaker 1: that like, I see you're trying to write a resume,
Speaker 1: would you like some help? Same sort of thing was
Speaker 1: in Bob. In fact, that was one of the few
Speaker 1: things to carry over into other Microsoft products. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: the dog from the Windows XP search function was basically
Speaker 1: retriever U there. When we talk about some of the
Speaker 1: other personal assistants, you'll recognize that at least one of
Speaker 1: them did make it into Microsoft Office. A Clippy was
Speaker 1: not in Bob, but he Clippy, in his own little way,
Speaker 1: was hated just as much as Bob was. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you could uh and and you would have to go
Speaker 1: from room to room inside Bob in order to access
Speaker 1: all the different programs, and that was not always the
Speaker 1: most intuitive thing to do, which was unfortunate considering that
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of Bob was to make using computers
Speaker 1: even easier. Um and so yeah, you could just sit
Speaker 1: there and change out clip art to your heart's content.
Speaker 1: So I guess we can talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: about the actual requirements the software and and sort of
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the navigation that once you're
Speaker 1: in Bob. Um. I'm still reeling over the fact that
Speaker 1: essentially everyone had administrative rights on Bob no matter what,
Speaker 1: whether they were logged in or not. That's kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: all right, Okay, So so the so the programs that
Speaker 1: came native to Bob included a household Manager UM, which
Speaker 1: was kind of kind of kind of life tips and
Speaker 1: home organizational kind of things like if you needed it
Speaker 1: to do list or something like that. I think that
Speaker 1: that was part of that function. Yeah, you could also
Speaker 1: do that out of the calendar as well. Um. It
Speaker 1: did have a note on it that the textual information
Speaker 1: may not be accurate or complete, and it's not intended
Speaker 1: to replace consultation with a professional, which really entertains me
Speaker 1: because I'm like, yeah, we're just we just wrote some stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there was the Bob letter Writer, Yes, we should help
Speaker 1: you write letter. I see you're trying to write a letter,
Speaker 1: And that was very much like Clippy, to the point
Speaker 1: where you could tell Bob what sort of letter you
Speaker 1: were writing and to what sort of person you were writing,
Speaker 1: and it would fill out. It would auto fill out
Speaker 1: an entire letters very awful, might not at all related
Speaker 1: to what you want to say. Um. I almost only
Speaker 1: want to communicate in those now, just to see how
Speaker 1: how far I could get using only Bob created letters. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and just see if I could communicate my point
Speaker 1: across through auto film messages. So Lauren, you've got something
Speaker 1: to look forward to in the upcoming week. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you Microsoft for making this possible. Um No, I'm sorry, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: Please don't please don't kill me. Um. There's a financial
Speaker 1: guide Bob Checkbook, which was also compatible with Microsoft's money software. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh that calendar that Jonathan mentioned, an address book. You
Speaker 1: could sign up for a Bob email account. I totally
Speaker 1: wish I had one of those. This was this was
Speaker 1: It was an extra charge at the time and went
Speaker 1: only through a proprietary email client. You couldn't just sign
Speaker 1: up any email client that you want to take through
Speaker 1: the system. Still. And then Geo Safari the game. It
Speaker 1: was a little game with an education. There were a
Speaker 1: couple of There are a couple of of little assistance
Speaker 1: that would pop up for specific programs, and one of
Speaker 1: them was a little elephant guy who would pop up
Speaker 1: in Geo Safari. So while you're playing the game, this
Speaker 1: little elephant dude shows up and asks you questions about
Speaker 1: various areas or even not just geography, but also animals.
Speaker 1: So I actually watched a video of this demonstrated where
Speaker 1: a person was playing it, and it gave you pairs
Speaker 1: of animals and explained their relationship to each other. So
Speaker 1: shark and fish would be predator and prey, uh. And
Speaker 1: then a what was the one like a shark and
Speaker 1: a lamprey would be a partner animal partnership, so a
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship. And then like a deer and a tick,
Speaker 1: which would be a parasite parasitic relationship. And then what
Speaker 1: it would do is it would show you two animals
Speaker 1: and you had to figure out which of those three
Speaker 1: categories those two animals would would fall into that that
Speaker 1: pair would fall into. So that was an example of
Speaker 1: that GeoSafari game. But most of the game, from what
Speaker 1: I understand, was really more of geography than uh than biology,
Speaker 1: right anyway, So that was one of those little assistances
Speaker 1: that would pop up for a specific instance. But there
Speaker 1: were other assistants as well, right, Yeah, we had I've
Speaker 1: got a whole list here. We've got blithe the firefly, hopper,
Speaker 1: the bunny, or be the globe ruby. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: it was basically an angry bird before before angry birds
Speaker 1: were a thing. Um Shelly the turtle, speaker, the the
Speaker 1: a speaker. It was a little a little icon of
Speaker 1: a of a like a noise making computer speak. Um,
Speaker 1: Chaos the cat, Java the dinosaur. I think, Scus the rat.
Speaker 1: Scuse the mouse. It was a mouse, not a rat. Hey, no,
Speaker 1: just goes a link to a blind dot digger the worm.
Speaker 1: Um and William Shakespeare are the ones you forgot. The
Speaker 1: most important one of the two important ones. There's the dot.
Speaker 1: The dot. It was a giant red dot, okay, with
Speaker 1: the big smiley face. But the most important one was
Speaker 1: Bode Laire, the French gargoyle. How could you leave out
Speaker 1: bode Laire, the French gargoyle? I had I had heard
Speaker 1: tell of a gargoyle, but I didn't have its name,
Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't want to. His name was
Speaker 1: Bode Laire. Well, he's a gargoyle who was French. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And each of these, each of these assistants had its
Speaker 1: own kind of personality in a way, in the sense
Speaker 1: that it would some of them would be a little
Speaker 1: more active than others, so Um would would be faster
Speaker 1: to jump in and offer suggestions than others. Apparently, Scuzzie
Speaker 1: the mouse was really apathetic just just didn't care. Botelaire
Speaker 1: was supposedly very quiet unless you specifically clicked on bodel
Speaker 1: Aire to to get some help. Some of them were
Speaker 1: a little more proactive, right, And they all had different
Speaker 1: different words that they would use. They had a different vocabulary,
Speaker 1: and for example, one of the words that Rover really
Speaker 1: liked using was scrumptious, as as in, I'm just one
Speaker 1: of a scrumptious gang of personal guides here to help
Speaker 1: you find your way in the home dog. Uh blythe
Speaker 1: would say OI a lot, I'm not joking back off
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing. Yeah, because I read up
Speaker 1: on these. Um yeah, So so anyway, they if you,
Speaker 1: if this sounds to you like this would be even
Speaker 1: more obnoxious than Clippy, you're pretty much on the right track.
Speaker 1: That does the feedback in fact that many people well
Speaker 1: I mean obviously Clippy didn't exist yet as a as
Speaker 1: a point of ref yeah, uh and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you have that personal assistant going with you wherever, so
Speaker 1: you could actually there was one choice that was invisible,
Speaker 1: and invisible was essentially no personal assistant. You could still
Speaker 1: get help if you really needed it, but you didn't
Speaker 1: have that that little animated character who was almost always
Speaker 1: in the lower right hand corner of your screen. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and these were characters that also like if if
Speaker 1: you were idle for an extended time, characters like like
Speaker 1: Rover or Chaos would go to sleep. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: occasionally they would interact with other stuff in the room
Speaker 1: to kind of be amusing. But I think I would
Speaker 1: have considered it distracting personally, but absolutely uh and then uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it also had a I thought it was nice that
Speaker 1: that Bob came with some productivity software like letter Writer,
Speaker 1: in the sense that you didn't already have to go
Speaker 1: out and buy other software suites. You could do some
Speaker 1: basic computing stuff in Bob. It's uh, it's unfortunate that
Speaker 1: most of the navigation looked pretty complex. Actually it would.
Speaker 1: It would pull up these these dialogue windows with lots
Speaker 1: of different choices. Yeah, I mean, I mean like RPG
Speaker 1: level choice. I mean like like seven different choices on
Speaker 1: all these menus. Right, so you see, you know, basic
Speaker 1: menu design, you want to try and keep it as
Speaker 1: simple as possible. But some of these menus had seven
Speaker 1: or more choices on them, and and now all of
Speaker 1: them were intuitive, like you couldn't really be like one
Speaker 1: of them might be change something like, well that's not
Speaker 1: specific at all, what does that mean? And if you
Speaker 1: clicked on it would allow you to do things like
Speaker 1: change the the view of the room, so whatever is
Speaker 1: in the wind, whatever's appearing in the window, or change
Speaker 1: which programs are there or or or move to a
Speaker 1: different room. Um, you could add doorways, you could add rooms.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh you might think this, uh, this, this
Speaker 1: program probably didn't meet with too much success or acclaim
Speaker 1: and you'd you'd be right, you'd be correct entirely. It.
Speaker 1: According to pc Data, a retail research firm, only around
Speaker 1: fifty eight thousand copies of Bob were ever sold. Um.
Speaker 1: By contrast, uh moved like two point seven five million
Speaker 1: copies in retail the first month. Yeah, so fifty eight
Speaker 1: thousand for the almost the year that it existed. And
Speaker 1: that's it. Um. Also, Microsoft kind of shot itself in
Speaker 1: the foot. They distributed copies review copies to journalists back
Speaker 1: in December, right with with an embargo on reviews until
Speaker 1: only until after CES, not until the product launched, right
Speaker 1: and so at c S. Bill Gates gets up talks
Speaker 1: about it, but at that point the embargo lifts which
Speaker 1: means that the journalists are allowed to write their thoughts
Speaker 1: on Microsoft Bob. And they did and some of them
Speaker 1: were how they did, Yeah, there's yeah one one. One
Speaker 1: guy said that uh much much of the behavior of
Speaker 1: these of these characters that are running around helping you
Speaker 1: out will be unappealing to people. Seriously bent I'm getting
Speaker 1: a lot of their PCs or two adults of any
Speaker 1: kind for that matter, essentially saying that anyone who's not
Speaker 1: a kid is going to hate this, right and that
Speaker 1: that is the thing, you know, that's I feel like,
Speaker 1: even if if I were completely new to computers had
Speaker 1: never used your scene one, if I had a cartoon
Speaker 1: talking to me about what I wanted to do, I've
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It feels like it's a toy. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's it feels like it's a toy. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's talking down to you. Um and I mean
Speaker 1: to be fair. When Microsoft was showing off the assistance
Speaker 1: way back with publisher there were the response was very positive.
Speaker 1: People were saying, this is fantastic because these these programs
Speaker 1: are getting so complicated that I just don't know how
Speaker 1: to do some of the things that you know, I
Speaker 1: occasionally need to do, but I don't do so frequently
Speaker 1: that I've memorized the path to do this, and I
Speaker 1: want this for everything. And Microsoft heard those those cries
Speaker 1: and ran with it to the point where people realize
Speaker 1: they didn't really want it for everything. They wanted it
Speaker 1: for stuff that was beyond an easy couple of cliques, right,
Speaker 1: And and that's that is where a lot of the
Speaker 1: later Wizards came out of And you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: we still have that on computers and it can still
Speaker 1: be useful. Um. And I think that they were. Some
Speaker 1: of their test audiences supposedly reacted very well to it. Um.
Speaker 1: According to an article in PC World, um Fries had
Speaker 1: Karen fries had remembered one man's response early on to
Speaker 1: to a to a little duck helper quote. This guy
Speaker 1: was very emotional about it. He grabbed my arm. He said,
Speaker 1: save all the money on the manuals and just give
Speaker 1: me this duck to always be there and tell me
Speaker 1: what to do. Yeah. Which again they ran with that,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately I think they took it to too far
Speaker 1: of an extreme. Also, Bob was a bit of a
Speaker 1: resource hog. Uh. Keep in mind, in order to run it,
Speaker 1: you were Uh, the suggested minimum system requirements were to
Speaker 1: have a forty six CPU. Well I remember those days.
Speaker 1: I actually had a two eighty six way back in
Speaker 1: the day. If you had a three day six, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh super fast. You had to have thirty megabytes of
Speaker 1: free disk space. Again, that doesn't sound like much, but
Speaker 1: it was no. I mean at the time a thirty
Speaker 1: tea card drive was large and uh, and eight megabytes
Speaker 1: of memory, which was about twice as much as what
Speaker 1: most of the computers had. So for the time, you
Speaker 1: had to have a very powerful machine to be able
Speaker 1: to just run this and so and so. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so you're talking someone who's who's never used computers before
Speaker 1: but has a better one than most other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would have to go and spend a good amount
Speaker 1: of money. Uh. They did come standard on one of
Speaker 1: the Gateway computers. Um, the Bob was the standard user
Speaker 1: in their face for that machine. It's also fortunate for
Speaker 1: that Gateway it had a different layout to it looked
Speaker 1: more like a barn than a house. Um. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: it was the same stuff. I just I just face
Speaker 1: palmed at that very idea excellent. I don't really have
Speaker 1: anything more to say about about that part of it,
Speaker 1: but also they there's some other there's another legacy that
Speaker 1: Bob left us. Although it's interesting it was not actually
Speaker 1: used in Bob, but it was created for Bob and
Speaker 1: it has lived on in infamy ever since. It's something
Speaker 1: that is perhaps even more hated than Bob itself, maybe
Speaker 1: only because it's been persistent. Right we are, we are
Speaker 1: talking about the font comics stands, comic sands. That was
Speaker 1: a font that was designed specifically for Bob, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't used in Bob, but that was then incorporated in
Speaker 1: future Microsoft releases and and this this font has received
Speaker 1: a lot of hate, a lot of hate. Well it
Speaker 1: was it was created originally because Microsoft designer Vincent Connair
Speaker 1: saw a beta of Bob and thought that time's new
Speaker 1: rooman was that was the font being used in it
Speaker 1: at the time. And he was like, there's a disconnect
Speaker 1: between this fun, bubbly image that we're presenting and very
Speaker 1: terse formal font, and so let's make something that looks
Speaker 1: like it came straight out of a comic book and
Speaker 1: then reaping the rewards and echo aids for generations to come.
Speaker 1: You know what, I don't hate comic sands I'll come
Speaker 1: out and say it. I don't particularly love it, but
Speaker 1: I don't hate it. I know people, though, who have
Speaker 1: a violent reaction to I hate it. In business emails, yes,
Speaker 1: if I get a business email from someone, it's in
Speaker 1: comic sense. It's hard to take that email seriously. You know,
Speaker 1: if it starts off with hey, bozo, I'll go ahead
Speaker 1: and read it, though, because then I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: now you're on Now you're speaking my language. I got you.
Speaker 1: Now we're on the same page. There's some sort of weird, ironic,
Speaker 1: sarcastic email, and now I need to know what it says.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think. I don't think I
Speaker 1: want to become a kind of hipster who uses comic
Speaker 1: fans on on purpose in an ironic way. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't want your emails to have a giant mustache, now
Speaker 1: I do not. That's fair, alright, So, um, do you
Speaker 1: have anything else you want to say about Bob before
Speaker 1: we wrap it up? I think I think that is
Speaker 1: the complete breadth and depth that it's. It's it's funny
Speaker 1: that we were even able to do an episode on this.
Speaker 1: When I first thought about I was thinking, am I
Speaker 1: really gonna be able to talk about a product that
Speaker 1: only was out on the market for less than a year.
Speaker 1: It turns out, yes we were because there was a
Speaker 1: lot too. There were a lot of good ideas that
Speaker 1: went into the development of Bob. They just didn't get
Speaker 1: implemented in a way that was really useful. Actually, I
Speaker 1: do have one more story. I'm sorry completely loued a
Speaker 1: second ago about about the legacy of Bob. According to
Speaker 1: Raymond Chen for tech Net magazine, I know this story
Speaker 1: when when when Windows XP came out, it came out
Speaker 1: on CD and there were maybe about thirty megabytes of
Speaker 1: capacity left over on the CD, so thirty megabytes of
Speaker 1: free space, free space, sure, and they wanted to fill
Speaker 1: it up with some encrypted data that would be checked
Speaker 1: by the set up program as part of the installation
Speaker 1: and verification process. Um, just just to you know, make
Speaker 1: make it a little bit more difficult for pirates to
Speaker 1: download it, right, But by adding thirty megabytes to the
Speaker 1: to the size of the file, you would increase the
Speaker 1: download time significantly. Because remember this is back in this
Speaker 1: is not broadband time. We're talking about using a dial
Speaker 1: up modem. So if you're using a dial up modem
Speaker 1: to try and pirate software. Thirty megabytes might be the
Speaker 1: difference between I'll go and do it or no, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. Um but so, but so instead
Speaker 1: of putting just random gobbledygook into that extra thirty megs,
Speaker 1: he um whoever was doing it, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it was. If it could have it could have been
Speaker 1: a brave woman in our in our technical industry, um
Speaker 1: uh used used the entirety of Bob. Yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: and encrypted it and scrambled it with a keyboard mash
Speaker 1: encryption key. I've heard that. I've heard that story. I've
Speaker 1: also heard that it might be apocryphal, So do take
Speaker 1: that with a grain of salt. But it is a
Speaker 1: fun story to say that, Hey, I need to fill
Speaker 1: up this thirty megabytes of space, how big Bob? Thirty
Speaker 1: megabytes done? We got it, you need it, you need
Speaker 1: to fill it up with gibberish. I've got Bob. We've
Speaker 1: got so much. That just hurts even more than yeah yeah, sweetheart.
Speaker 1: Well that that kind of wraps up our discussion on Bob.
Speaker 1: Before we sign off, I do want to say something.
Speaker 1: We've how stuff works. We've recently launched some YouTube channels
Speaker 1: of the various shows that are here at How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: We've got some podcasts that are now doing video shows
Speaker 1: and they're amazing. They're fantastic. We don't really we don't
Speaker 1: have a tech stuff one yet yet guys making a
Speaker 1: face of terror, but we have and there are the
Speaker 1: ones that have come out already. We're looking at them
Speaker 1: and we're thinking, Wow, we've got a lot to live
Speaker 1: up to. So one I want to recommend to you
Speaker 1: guys is the Stuff to Blow your Mind channel and
Speaker 1: uh and to check this out, you need to go
Speaker 1: to www dot YouTube dot com slash Mind Stuff Show
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be able to see Robert and Julie
Speaker 1: of of Stuff to Blow your Mind doing some amazing videos.
Speaker 1: They're really creative and they're really a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And it got one about slime that I'm particularly partial to. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been pretty knee deep in the slime thing recently
Speaker 1: and we've seen them, Like I love seeing them shoot
Speaker 1: because we can actually see them shooting throughout the day
Speaker 1: as we go through the various little bits at the
Speaker 1: office here there, which is kind of fun. And whenever
Speaker 1: you see like the beakers and test tubes that you're
Speaker 1: thinking something good is happening. So I highly recommend you
Speaker 1: guys go and check that out. And if you have
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