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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!hp-pcd!hp-dcd!donn
From: donn@hp-dcd.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response - (nf)
Message-ID: <1295@hp-pcd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Jul-83 03:29:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: hp-pcd.1295
Posted: Thu Jul  7 03:29:26 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Jul-83 04:47:04 EDT
Sender: netnews@hp-pcd.UUCP
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Corvallis OR
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#R:mit-eddi:0:hp-dcd:16700001:37777777600:1085
hp-dcd!donn    Jul  5 20:31:00 1983

I agree that the conventional light pen is a nightmare.  What I simply
don't understand is why the manufactuers havn't figured out that a 
pistol grip is 'the right answer'.

I don't follow the field as closely as I did 5 years ago, but everyone
I knew of at the time made light pens in the shape of a pen (more or
less).  At the time I was using an Imlac with a light pen that used
fiber optics to take the light to a photomultiplier.  It had lenses
and everything.  It was heavy (but would track a crosshair at 2 feet
from the screen with the glare screen off!) and clumsy.  We had a
little box machined and mounted the switch as a trigger in a pistol
configuration (and used a larger button on the switch).  It was 
infinitely better than the old configuration.

At the time there was even one of those 'how we spent your bucks'
movies on computer graphics where whoever was doing it said that
they had done about the same thing, only mounted it in a squirt gun
body!

I still don't see pistol grip light pens.  Why?

Donn Terry
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