1986: GEM versus WINDOWS - BATTLE of the GUIs | Micro Live | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

Micro Live's Fred Harris considers how daunting computers can be to novice users. He chats to psychologist Professor David Canter, who notes how finding your way around a computer system can be frustrating and unintuitive. Professor Canter visits the Barbican Centre, which proves an excellent metaphor for navigating the endless corridors of unfriendly operating systems.

With the Apple Macintosh proving that computers can be user friendly, Ian McNaught-Davis delves into the sexy but largely unheralded world of GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). He stages a titanic battle of the GUIs - in the red corner, Paul Bailey of Digital Research demonstrates GEM, while in the blue corner, Microsoft's David Fraser shows off Windows.

Clip taken from Micro Live, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 12 November, 1986.





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