Twenty-five years ago I had my first experience with a computer.  I sat down at a terminal in what they used to call a computer lab.  There were three terminals in this lab with fixed seating like in a diner.  The computers had no screen and no RAM and instead of a hard drive they used punch cards.  I remember thinking to myself when I first sat down at a computer, "I wonder what this thing can do?"

On that first computer, in a programming class,  I learned how to write applications like a game that would allow you to play Tic-Tac-Toe.  After I mastered all the things this first generation of computers could do, I remember thinking to myself, "Is that all there is?" (Just like the Peggy Lee Song)

As I write this we are awaiting the release of the Treo 600 (pictured above) which is a handheld computer that easily fits in your pocket, has a camera and telephone built into it, and is millions of times more powerful that those old computer terminals.  It is truly amazing how far we have come.  The Technological growth curve is exponential in nature.  Today I look at the current handheld computing technology and I once again ask myself, "Is that all there is?"

This article is about the history of my Bullet Train User Interface and the new Bullet Train UI that I developed for the Treo 600.

Power is Useless Without Control

Three years ago I purchased a Compaq iPaq Pocket PC that ran on Microsoft's Pocket PC OS.  I thought the hardware was amazing but that the software and User Interface was weak, so I designed a new UI for it which I dubbed Bullet Train.  The first half of this article uses materials from my original presentation to Microsoft three years ago.

Picture to the left is my original BulletTrain UI for the Microsoft Pocket PC on a Compaq iPaq.

I presented Bullet Train to Microsoft by saying "One way to analogize Bullet Train is to recognize that the current Pocket PC UI is like an old fashioned passenger train. It is inefficient, bogged down, slow, and has a bumpy ride. Bullet Train conversely, is like being on an Innovative, Ultra Modern, High-speed train that gets you from point A to point B as efficiently as possible."

I came up with the name Bullet Train because this intriguingly simple UI gets you to every destination quickly and efficiently. As a matter of fact, Bullet Train can get you to just about any destination in just one simple tap.

My premise was simple: Bullet Train makes the PocketPC platform ten times easier, ten times simpler, and ten times more powerful. Bullet Train is designed as a freestanding program, which replaces the Today page as well as supplementing the Start Menu.

This next image accurately illustrates the major challenge I was trying to overcome.  Simply stated, I told Microsoft that "the current UI is oversimplified. The training wheels are getting in the way, Big time!"

In the next slide from my 2000 presentation to Microsoft I illustrate how I eliminated with BulletTrain, the learning curve associated with going from the Palm to the PPC.  The number seven with the arrows on the top left represent shortcuts to the core MS apps on the PPC:

The essence of Bullet Train was that you should have all your important info on one screen including your appointments, dated to-do items and you should be able to launch any program in just one tap.  I invested several hundred hours working on the original Bullet Train UI.  I sent a detailed presentation to Bill Gates and a copy to the Pocket PC division at Microsoft.  A representative from Microsoft's PocketPC team contacted me and told me they did not want to modify their existing user interface.

After my Microsoft experience I kept going on my own making models and experimenting with UI and form factor.  The pictures below are models I made three years ago.

I started out with a one piece unit as seen above and then ended up with a clamshell device as seen below.  Bear in mind I made these mach ups a year and a half before the introduction of the first Treo.

In the end, my experience with pocket PCs was awful.  I ended up replacing it with a Treo 180 and if you want to read more on my switch from the PPC to the Treo 180 in March of 2002 you can read it here.

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