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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Request for New product reviews (Not one mention of Amiga anywhere...)
Message-ID: <1009@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 13:03:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1009
Posted: Mon Aug 19 13:03:23 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 20:41:51 EDT
References: <2525@vax4.fluke.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 51
Keywords: GATO, Animation, Mouse-alikes


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From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer), Message-ID: <2525@vax4.fluke.UUCP>:
>Frankly, the thing you strap to your head which moves the mouse
>pointer as you shift your head makes the person look like something out of
>Captain Video, but whatever turns you on...

Well, you may look like Captain Video, but I got a demo of said product
(I can't remember it's name - sigh) at the National Computer Conference
last month, and it is FUN!  It does take a while to get used to, and I
felt kinda stupid standing there in public shaking my head wildly and
grinning foolishly, but after I calmed down a bit I decided that this was
a hot item.  The sales rep was, of course, much more experienced with the
thing, and he played Ground Zero great - just look at the missiles and
they blow up.  And what I consider to be MacWrite's biggest drawback is
just gone - you no longer have to take your hands from the keyboard.

How it's actually set up:  I forget the exact layout, but there's a small
box that sat on top of the Mac and was hooked into the mouse port.  Both
the mouse and the headset are connected to it, so you can use either at
any time.  The box had a 3 position switch that controlled the sensitivity
(i.e. determined how far you had to move your head to get a specific
movement of the cursor).  At at least the most sensitive setting, the
cursor movement was not a linear function of head movement alone - the
cursor accelerated although your head moved at a constant speed.  This
allows for very small movements to move the cursor precisely, and only
slightly larger movements to move the cursor all the way across the
screen.  (With a little practice it's not difficult to select a single
character in MacWrite.)  Two buttons come attached to a plastic plate that
snaps onto the keyboard just below the center of the space bar.  The left
one is the mouse-click button.  The right one controls whether or not head
movement moves the cursor.  One can either have head movement control the
cursor Only when that button is pressed (good for MacWrite) or Unless it's
pressed (good for Ground Zero).  Changing that property is as simple as
double-clicking that right button (that might not be the exact way to do
it (it's been a while), but the actual way is that easy).

I think the product shows thoughtfulness and good attention to detail.
I'll wait til it comes down a bit from $200, but once you get used to it,
I think it's big fun, and will probably be worth it soon.

	        [This blank line, however, was an accident]
-- 

--JB       (Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

		"Oh yeah, P.S.,
		 I...I feel...feel like...I am
		 in a burning building
		 And I gotta go."            (Laurie Anderson)