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From: brucec@orca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Question on the mouse, comments abou - (nf)
Message-ID: <1342@orca.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Jun-83 14:33:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1342
Posted: Wed Jun 29 14:33:38 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jun-83 17:01:24 EDT
Lines: 23


The classic paper on evaluation of computer input devices is
"Evaluation of Mouse, Rate-Controlled Isometric Joystick, Step Keys,
and Text Keys for Text Selection on a CRT" Card, et. al., Xerox
Technical Report SSL-77-1, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1977.  The
paper compares the devices for speed and error rate in selecting
characters, and derives some equations from the data in an attempt to
find a basis in control theory for the results.

At this time there is a rather large body of research on various
aspects of manual control, much of it stimulated by the military or
the space program.  Unfortunately, it's a relatively esoteric study as
far as most engineers or computer scientists are concerned (neither
ACM SIGCHI, nor IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics society is large).
So there aren't a lot of people who know that there is prior art when
they design an interactive computer system.  I hope that this will
change as the emphasis on human interface technology increases.

				Bruce Cohen

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