Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP 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 UUCP: ...!teklabs!tekecs!brucec CSNET: tekecs!brucec@tektronix ARPA: tekecs!brucec.tektronix@rand-relay