moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (08/16/85)
Just to get off certain other subjects for awhile...
Has anyone got comments, recommendations, or slams of these (or other) new
products? -- The GATO submarine game; Any of the new Video Animation
programs (I've heard tell that Hayden's is very good); and any of the mouse
replacements that MacHype (err, World) mentioned in their almost-previous
issue. 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...
Thanks in advance...
"Today, my jurisdiction ends here."
Expect the Unexpected.
He does. ---> Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
UUCP:
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsri}!uw-beaver \
{allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty
ARPA:
fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPAbeth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy) (08/19/85)
[This line intentionally left blank] 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)