Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site oakhill.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!ut-sally!oakhill!davet From: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Newsgroups: fa.info-mac Subject: Re: Mac Turbo Touch / Speed Key vs. Mice Message-ID: <257@oakhill.UUCP> Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 10:14:06 EST Article-I.D.: oakhill.257 Posted: Tue Dec 4 10:14:06 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 06:41:40 EST References:Reply-To: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) Organization: Motorola Inc. Austin, Tx Lines: 32 Summary: In article <2359@uw-beaver> info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) writes: >From: Christopher A Kent >I hadn't seen this ad till today, and it is indeed intriguing. >Particularly the claim of "reduc[ing] the time it takes to edit a >document by 40%". I'd be very curious to know how this was measured. >I've always found it more difficult to position trackballs, and >certainly it's harder to move along a single axis. > >Unfortunately, Card, Moran and Newell didn't ever publish measurements >of trackballs when they were comparing input devices. I wonder if they >did any work with them, or just considered them inferior... > >chris >---------- I visited a customer in the Midwest which was trying to do Macintosh-like things on a trackball. The Boss was forcing the developers (hardware and software alike) to go the trackball route because previous machines already implemented them. The results was a total catastrophy (according to them.) However, it would be interesting if thru software smarts there were several levels of speed depending on precise intervals of rotation of the ball. The major complaint voiced was that it took too many rolls to move the cursor to the other end of the screen. (Note the Mac has an option in the control panel to skip every other pixel if the speed of the mouse goes above a certain limit.) It would be interesting to hear of anyone elses experiences. Motorola Semiconductor Dave Trissel Austin, Texas 32-Bit Applications Engineer