info-mac@uw-beaver (12/21/84)
From: Richard A. Cowan <COWAN@MIT-XX.ARPA> I'd like to make a few new points about mice and keyboards. First, I like the Mac mouse. It works quite well on a laminated desktop (if cleaned monthly). Though it's not as nice as a Xerox Dandelion Optical mouse, it has a smoother feel than the Dandelion's ball-bearing mouse. And I like the fact that it has only one button. With two buttons, programs attach meanings to the buttons that are arbitrary and therefore difficult to remember. It's just as easy to hit one button as it is the other; why should one button be reserved for the more important or more destructive commands? With a 1-button mouse, double-clicking is available for actions with large consequences; the user clearly sees that to do more, he or she must keep clicking. To illustrate the confusion encountered with 2-button mice, look at the Mac's command and option keys. It's tough at first remembering whether control sequences use the command or option key. You must learn the key meanings---by using key caps, drawing the link between command and control keys, or by the meaning of the word "command." If it takes you three weeks to draw the association, you spend needless time uncomfortable with part of the machine. Criticism of the mouse has failed to mention the mouse's size. An optical mouse is better for signing your name because it is smaller, not just because it has low friction. A great product for the mac would be a "Minnie Mouse"---a 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 1" mouse that would be used by the fingertips for precise painting. As for the placement of the "control" key on the mac, I don't think it should be moved to caps-lock; it just should be moved over a bit. Where where it is now, it feels like I'm hitting the space bar. It's even sculptured like the space bar, as if I'm supposed to hit it with my thumb. To compare, look at how far a space bar extends on a VT100. It goes all the way to the middle of the 'Z'. On a mac, it only goes to the middle of the 'X'. Move the command and option keys over 3/4", and you have, in my opinion, an ideal placement. Very similar to the location of "Control" and "Meta" on a Symbolics Lisp machine. Rich (Temporarily at GE, Schenectady) -------