human-nets@cca.UUCP (06/01/83)
>From Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers Wed Jun 1 03:10:37 1983
HUMAN-NETS Digest Wednesday, 1 Jun 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 29
Today's Topics:
Computers and People - Ergonometrics (5 msgs),
Call for Papers - Phoenix Conference on Computers and Communications,
A Little Humor - "High-Tech Dressing"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 18 May 83 09:36 EDT (Wednesday)
From: clark.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Subject: Re: TERM AMB LENGTH 48 AIR-JETS HIGH LASERS ON NO NUKES:
I think such air jets would be highly annoying, assuming you could
think of a simple, cheap way to implement it. A tiny bump on the F
and J keys, similar to the one on the middle keys on accountant's
calculators might be nice, but they usually make them too big. On
many keyboards, once you are used to them you can often tell from
other context, although I am not real sure what... probably other
keys or the case or something like that.
The F and J keys are not necessarily the right ones, since the D and
K fingers stick out a little more, although on the third hand you
don't want something that will tend to wear a hole [or calouse] in a
finger after a while.
--Ray
------------------------------
Date: 18 May 1983 0948-PDT
Subject: Let your fingers do the servo-ing
From: Dave Dyer <DDYER@USC-ISIB>
The keyboard used on the Symbolics LM2 has noticeably deeped finger
cups on "F" and "J" keys, which I have always assumed was help touch
typists' fingers servo themselves into position.
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 18 May 1983 22:04:50 EDT
From: Larry-E-Engholm-H@CMU-EE-AMPERE
Subject: Air Jets on keyboards
The idea of putting air jets on terminal keyboards between the F
and G and the H and J keys is certainly a good one. However, I
think it would be more useful (though maybe not as practical) to
have the air jets come from the center of the F and J keys, for your
fingers to home in on.
Alternatively, you could shape the surface of the F and J keys
differently from the other keys, so they feel different. For
example, you could make the curves deeper for those keys. The
terminal that I use at work has this feature, and although I still
sometimes spell things yjod esu, I think I do it much less often
than I would otherwise.
Larry
------------------------------
Date: Thu 19 May 83 09:27:26-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Air Jets
I assume that Phil Agre was not serious about air jets to solve the
keyboard positioning problem. Raised dots on a pair of keys are
just as effective -- I don't know why they are not more common.
I am not surprised that "people who wander into [Phil's] office" at
MIT have a problem with keyboard registration. The EMACS editor
forces use of a new "home" position with the hands at the sides of
the keyboard and the thumbs on the "meta" keys. The right hand is
particularly susceptible to loss of registration if a side keypad is
used for common cursor motion commands.
I occassionally type in near darkness (to let my wife sleep). I
find it much easier to use VI under these conditions, although I
still have some trouble finding the special symbols on the top (or
numeral) row.
If my keyboards at home and at work were not identical I would be
unable to edit except by hunt and peck. I hope that some new
keyboard layout (e.g., the one with separate tilted keypads for the
two hands) will catch on, and that the editing functions will be
rationally assigned to the standard keys (using a mode switch!!).
EMACS and the space-cadet keyboard are not the answer.
-- Ken Laws
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1983 10:38 mst
From: <@MIT-DEVMULTICS:Falksenj.Multics@SYSTEM-M.PHOENIX.HONEYW>
Subject: Keyboard layout (air jets!?)
We all have seen the multitude of keyboard layouts on our various
machines. The problem is World-wide. In Stockholm I saw a terminal
and typewriter behind the counter at a bank. Swedish has 29 letters
and so there are 3 more letter keys. These two machines had them in
different places.
I don't know if some new keyboard layout will solve many problems.
Too many new layouts seems to have caused the problem. Let's look
at the situation from this perspective: A person wants to get work
done. It is not as important to he-she what the layout is as it is
important for them to be well acquainted with it.
Proposed -- typewriters and terminals be equiped with a connector
which is easily accessable to the user. The user owns his own
keyboard which as a matching connector on its umbilical cord. The
device receives its input from your keyboard as 8 (9,10?) bit ASCII.
It does not care how the data was presented (set the toggle switches
and press ENTER button, even).
The keyboard is whatever you wish to buy or construct. You could
use a VIC-20 or whatever to be an intelligent keyboard with macros
which you may redefine on the fly. You can use Dvorak layout if you
wish. You can get used to whatever you buy or you can buy/make
whatever you want to get used to. The main thing is that you can
type the same way whether your keyboard is plugged into an Apple ][
or a Victor 9000 or a VIP7801 or a Selectric. You get used to the
feel of your keyboard; some are very light and some are very stiff.
That is not as important as the fact that you have adjusted to it.
While we're at it, let's make an identifier available to the
keyboard so that it can adjust itself, i.e. if you are hooked to an
Apple when you press the <UP> key it must send esc-D whereas if you
are plugged into a VIP7801 it must send esc-A. Then software could
also send an identifier so that after you have entered EMACS, the
<UP> key sends a ^P.
Perhaps the ultimate in synergy would be:
1) a "keyboard" which is something like the TRS80 model 100, i.e. a
computer in its own right with its own limited display.
2) a "monitor" which gives 132x80 display and is a computer on its
own but with more horsepower (hard disk and RAM enough to make a
local editing protocol workable.
3) a "modem" which has its own processor and can be told to
institute CRC and/or Hamming code checking for when a line is
very noisy or when the data integrity is worth the overhead.
4) a "computer" with LOTS of horsepower and the smarts to handle an
LEP. It can be viewed as a Number_Crunch utility by the
"monitor" in the same way that the "monitor" can be viewed as a
Number_Grind utility by the "keyboard". (Crunching is abrupt,
grinding is a little slower.)
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1983 19:08 mst
From: VaughanW at HI-MULTICS (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: Call For Papers
Last year at this time I put the Call for Papers for the PC3
conference out to these mailing lists and bulletin boards. We
seemed to get a good response, so here it is again. Notice that
this year's theme is a little different. Further note that we are
formally refereeing papers this year.
If anyone out there is interested in refereeing, please send me a
note.
---------------
Third annual Phoenix Conference on Computers and Communications
CALL FOR PAPERS
Theme: THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE - Applying Evolving Technology.
The conference seeks to attract quality papers with emphasis on the
following areas:
APPLICATIONS -- Office automation; Personal Computers; Distributed
systems; Local/Wide Area Networks; Robotics, CAD/CAM;
Knowledge-based systems; unusual applications.
TECHNOLOGY -- New architectures; 5th generation & LISP machines; New
microprocessor hardware; Software engineering; Cellular mobile
radio; Integrated speech/data networks; Voice data systems; ICs and
devices.
QUALITY -- Reliability/Availiability/Serviceability; Human
engineering; Performance measurement; Design methodologies;
Testing/validation/proof techniques.
Authors of papers (3000-5000 words) or short papers (1000-1500
words) are to submit abstracts (300 words max.) with authors' names,
addresses, and telephone numbers. Proposals for panels or special
sessions are to contain sufficient detail to explain the
presentation. 5 copies of the completed paper must be submitted,
with authors' names and affiliations on a separate sheet of paper,
in order to provide for blind refereeing.
Abstracts and proposals due: August 1
Full papers due: September 15
Notification of Acceptance: November 15
Conference Dates: March 19-21, 1984
Address the abstract and all other replies to:
Susan C. Brewer
Honeywell LCPD, MS Z22
PO Box 8000 N
Phoenix AZ 85066
----------------
Or you can send stuff to me, Bill Vaughan (VaughanW @ HI-Multics)
and I will make sure Susan gets it.
------------------------------
Date: Tue May 24 1983 22:20:44-PDT
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM>
Subject: "High-Tech Dressing"
The following article was obviously written to be strictly
non-serious. Right? RIGHT?
--Lauren--
----
HIGH-TECH HOPEFUL GETS A DRESSING DOWN
by Art Buchwald
(from "The Los Angeles Times" [May 22, 1983])
Apparently the job market for college graduates is still in the
high-tech industries. The trouble is that most graduates don't know
how to apply for a high-tech job.
When Rod Beaver came home from an interview the other day, he was
very discouraged.
"The personnel director only spent three minutes with me and then
said I wasn't qualified."
"Of course you weren't qualified," his uncle, who works for IBM,
told him. "Look at the way you're dressed. You're wearing a blue
suit and a white shirt and a conservative tie. And you shaved. Is
that any way to apply for a position in a high-tech industry?"
Beaver said, "I don't understand. I wanted to make a good
impression."
"You don't make a good impression in high-tech by wearing a shirt
and tie."
"I thought everyone at IBM had to wear a dark suit, shirt and
tie."
"That was in the old days, when it was important to look nice.
If you want to be a salesman you can dress like that, but if you're
going for the big money in programming and research, they don't
trust you if you're too well dressed."
***
"What should he have worn?" Beaver's mother asked.
"A sport shirt, blue jeans and open sandals. You have to look
like a crazy genius before they take any interest in you. You kids
think you can just walk into a high-tech company all slicked and
dressed up and they'll be impressed with you. But it isn't so.
They want people who look like they know something about computers."
"I've got an outfit in my closet I can wear, and I'll go out for
an interview this afternoon."
"Don't go out until you grow a beard. High-tech executives hate
people who are cleanshaven. And don't get a haircut for a while --
you want to look like a gorilla if you hope to get the personnel
director's attention."
"Does he have to grow a beard?" his mother asked.
"It could make the difference between $25,000 and $45,000 a
year," his uncle said.
"What do I say to the personnel director?" Rod asked.
"You don't say much. I'll be the personnel man. Now the first
question I'll ask you is if you think you would be happy working for
the company."
"Yes, sir. It's always been my dream to work for a company like
this."
***
"That's not the correct reply. You say you have no idea, but
you're willing to give it a try. Except you don't want to be bugged
about how long it takes you to come up with something. And you
don't want anyone checking on how many hours you put in."
"Does he have to be that surly?" his mother asked.
"There are hundreds of kids waiting out there for jobs in
high-tech, and all the companies are looking for are surly loners
who don't want to be told what to do."
"If Rod is going to look unkempt and be surly, how is he going to
impress the high-tech clients?" his mother wanted to know.
"If he gets the job, he'll never see a customer. The people they
hire for research and development are kept in a separate building in
cages and they get a banana once or twice a day."
Rod thanked his uncle for the advice, and came back the next
month to announce that he got a job with the Apple Corp. "I did
everything you told me, and they were so impressed with the way I
looked and how surly I was that they selected me over two guys from
the Stanford Business School, and gave me a surfboard so I wouldn't
get bored in my office."
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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