Aucbvax.2289
fa.works
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works
Wed Jul 15 05:07:06 1981
Re: Collected commentary on touchpanels
>From Joe.Newcomer@CMU-10A Wed Jul 15 05:05:16 1981
What's wrong with light pens? The same thing that is wrong
with the standard pen that comes with the Summagraphics Bit Pad
One: you've got to pick the damn thing up! I went nearly crazy
trying to use an editor for two weeks with my Bit Pad, because
the editor ONLY accepted cursor motion thru the tablet and the
ONLY device I had for pointing was the pen! One of the worst-
designed systems I ever used. After two weeks, the 4-button
mouse came in, and most of the headaches went away, but I still
had to keep taking my hands off the keyboard for the smallest
cursor motions. Now we have an EMACS like editor that accepts
cursor movement and positioning commands from the keyboard or
tablet, and it is really nice; small relative motions can be
done quickly from the keyboard and large dragging motions can
be done with the tablet; I find the system quite friendly.
(As an aside, pens seem to be predicated on the idea that holding
a writing implement is a "natural" action and comfortable. I've
never found holding a pen comfortable, and have always preferred
to type rather than write. I write almost nothing; if it is
worth commiting to an medium outside my brain, I type it into
the computer!)
joe
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