gumby@mit-eddie.UUCP (David Vinayak Wallace) (12/01/83)
In-reply-to: The message of 30 Nov 83 00:26-EST from Steven M. Haflich <smh at mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Nov-83 00:26:23 EST
From: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich)
What wonders me in this discussion (though I appreciate the replies
that suggest to read everything is CBREAK mode), is that no one
came up with the answer `suggest a TYPEWRITER as model'. Surely
this kind of apparatus and its use are known to most people, and
surely on a typewriter you have to watch out for the end of the line!
I admire this cogent and meritorious suggestion, yet I find it
unsettling: I can't remember the last time I actually *used* a real
paper-and-platen typewriter! I cannot count the nearby Diablo which we
use for "letter-quality" output, as no human ever uses its keyboard. I
imagine there are children who have logged many hours on a glass tty but
who have *never* used a real typewriter! The increasing-common feature
of automatic break at end-of-line might render this suggestion
absolutely opaque.
So why does it bother me?
Well, this model would be useless to me. My first exposure to a
keyboard (of a non-musical instrument) was a Linolex word processor in
1972. It had a diablo printer, crt, cassette tapes (no floppies, then).
I leaned to type on that machine!
A couple of years later I saw my first non-selectric printer, and
exclaimed to my dad "Look! The PLATEN moves and the carriage is fixed!"
As a matter of fact, I can count the times I've used a typewriter one my
fingers. I've always used computers to type on.
david wallace
(19 years old now)