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Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!microsof!fluke!ssc-vax!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekecs!orca!brucec
From: brucec@orca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Question on the mouse, comments abou - (nf)
Message-ID: <1354@orca.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Jul-83 15:08:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1354
Posted: Fri Jul  1 15:08:45 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Jul-83 07:30:51 EDT
References: yale-com.1690
Lines: 46


I generally agree with the comments about light pens, that they are
clumsy and fatiguing.  Mice and tablets seem to be the best devices
around, both from my own experience and that of others whom I respect
(if you don't agree with me I don't guarantee to respect you (:-) ).
I've heard of the Bell Labs gadget that jerry@yale-comix describes, but
as I recall it had two problems: high cost, and a half-silvered mirror
that could not be kept clean enough in an operational environment.

Granted that touch panel devices on the market today are mighty crude,
there is still a lot that can be done with them.  An experimental
device developed at MIT a few years ago could get pressure and
pressure vector information at high resolution from a finger touch.
There is a paper about it in Computer Graphics, Vol. 12, No.3.
It was possible to push a cursor around, and even rotate it properly,
by holding a finger against the screen at one point and pushing
obliqely.  This is nice for human interface, because the kinesthetic
sense gets much more precise feedback from force than it does from
position (I can't give  a precise reference here, but there were
studies by the Air Force which resulted in the two-regime control
stick for the F-4).

My vote for the absolute best pointing device interface goes to the "Put
That There" system implemented on the Media Room facility at the MIT
Architecture Machine Group (see articles by Richard Bolt in the
SIGGRAPH '80 and '81 proceedings, Computer Graphics Volume 14, No. 3
and Vol. 15, No. 3).  Here the operator sits in a comfortable, high
backed lounge chair in front of a large rear-projection color video
screen.  To point to something, he literally points his finger
(an electromagnetic field generated by a box on his wrist is detected
by a fixed receiver) and speaks a command.  No buttons, no styli, no
muss, no fuss.

By the way, I do not now, and never have had any connection with
MIT.  It's just that in the late '70s and early '80s they did a lot of
fascinating work on human-machine interaction.  MIT people correct me
if I am wrong, but I get the impression that a lot of it was at the
instigation, or with the assistance of, Nicholas Negroponte, who is one
of the US scientists recruited by the French government for their
Informatique project.

				Bruce Cohen

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