Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!microsof!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@fluke.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: brain damaged (?) keyboards
Message-ID: <584@vax2.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jun-83 08:34:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.584
Posted: Mon Jun 27 08:34:00 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Jun-83 08:25:57 EDT
Lines: 26

Nobody said the HASCII keyboard was a step toward good human interface.  I
said good human interface design evolves toward fewer controls.  If all
those keys need reprogramming, then they are not the last word in human
interface are they?

Have a look at your automobile, and then at everybody elses car.  You
can get into a car anywhere and reasonably expect to drive off.  That
is because the controls have been evolving for 50 or 60 years down to
what is actually needed for driving.  You can easily remember cars that
had such things as a choke, which cars no longer have in general.  If
you are old you can remember cars with a spark advance, several pedals
for shifting gears, transmissions that had to be double-clutched and so
forth.  Now all these controls are gone.  Even the number of dials are
decreasing.  When was the last time you saw an oil pressure GUAGE on a
new car?

You can argue that these changes were made because it is cheaper to
not put in a guage when an idiot light will do, but if the guage were
necessary, it would still be there.

Computers will follow the same path.  Wait and see if in 10 years there
are still all those keys on a keyboard.  If the Japaneese have their way,
you'll talk to your computer and use no keys at all.  Right now you can
buy a voice controlled editor for the TI Professional so you only need
keys for typing text (voice commands move the cursor and set other
parameters).