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From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Mr Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: keyboards
Message-ID: <1414@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 22 Jun 88 11:11:49 GMT
References: <5024@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <1988Jun13.195851.1729@utzoo.uucp> <556@ecrcvax.UUCP> 
Reply-To: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
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In article  gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes:
>> How about foot pedals?  Namely shift, cntrl, ESC (for EMACS), and return.

>I've heard that footmice and other attempts at trying to get one's
>feet to convey spatial information failed out the wazoo.  However, ask
>a keyboard player or a rock guitarist how much control one has over
>sets of footpedals...  It's not the same as driving, but driving does
>demonstrate to non-musicians that good control is possible.

Feet seem to be good at two things; expressing intensity (as with an
accelerator) or for discrete switching (as with guitar controls). Organists
can do the latter at astonishing speed. Alkan wrote a four-voice fugue for one
pair of feet that he could perform on a a piano modified with a pedalboard.

How about using pressure to do menu selections or control things like font size
and typestyle? Your neighbours below might start complaining when you get to
48-point bold shadow underline, though...

-- 
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Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Dept., Glasgow Univ., 17 Lilybank Gardens,
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