What is the GUI and why is it important?

Answer 1

By "GUI", I assume you mean the Graphical User Interface. It's more important than ever given that most computers, game consoles and portable electronic devices (even most music players) now use graphics and icons to allow the user to interact with the device. It got started with Windows 3.X and has snowballed from there. If it wasn't for the GUI, you wouldn't be able to make your electronics do much of anything. The GUI for your computer, the ISP (internet service provider), web browser and this web site all contributed to your ability to post this question.

I remember what computers were like before there were any GUI's. Back in the late 80's (yes, I'm that old), I was using programs like DOS and UNIX to work on IBM PCs. Both of those operating systems were totally text based with no pictures at all. All you saw when you booted up your computer was a black screen with either green or yellow text on it. That's it. You had to type in commands after command prompts to get the computer to do anything. You could do many of the same things we do on computers today including word processing, playing games and even Surfing the 'net. Well by "the 'net" I mean a vastly stripped down version called Telnet which was little more than a glorified search engine that would let you look up research articles at libraries and universities. You could also e-mail the small handfull of other people who had e-mail accounts, but you had to contact them some other way (by phone, snail mail, in person etc to get their email account info.

So, be glad that you live in the brave new world of computers and other electronic devices with GUI's. They make interacting with your devices so much more intuitive than they used to be.