Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC From: REM%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.works Subject: mickey-mouse mice Message-ID: <17254@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Mar-84 12:08:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.17254 Posted: Tue Mar 6 12:08:00 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Mar-84 01:33:40 EST Lines: 22 From: Robert Elton MaasWell, last week I tried using the mouse on the Dandilion in Pat Suppes's office, and didn't like it. If I don't press hard enough, it slides instead of rolls, causing the cursor to just sit while I'm trying to move it. If I press too hard, the whole plastic mat slides across the table, and the mouse doesn't roll relative to it, it is dragging the mat along with it, and again the cursor just sits. The expert then said "you have to learn how to do it right, like driving a car". My reaction is a mouse isn't something a novice can just pick up and use correctly, so it isn't qualatively better than keystroke-cursor motion or other tools that need training and experience, although it may be quantitively better in needing less training. More on initial reation to mouse after some other problems are fixed so I can give it another try (after the CPU is fixed to not crash and the software is fixed to allow copying virtual-memories around so we don't have to spend 15 minutes booting from four floppies each time the program crashes and the 800-page Interlisp-D documentation arrives. Also if we had the fileserver up I'm told things would be more tolerable).