STEINER@RUTGERS.ARPA (01/07/85)
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
I really >>hate<< to stir up the VDT health issue again, but I had a
thought about it that hasn't been covered in the discussions I've
seen.
Early research concentrated on x-rays; later studies have been
covering nonionizing radiation (and also negative ion density, etc.).
I have not heard, however, of any studies about VDTs and motion
sickness.
There have been reports on TV about NASA's motion sickness studies
indicating that the queasiness is due to a discrepancy between motion
estimates from the visual field and from the inner ear. You can get
motion sickness from watching (intently) a picture of waves against a
heaving horizon even though you are stationary.
I have occasionally become queasy when intently editing a long file
of addresses. I surmise that the intermittent, but nearly
continuous, upward scrolling has the same effect on my visual sense
as the picture of a heaving horizon would.
Is it possible, then, that headaches, nausea, or even miscarriages,
are caused in some people by the constant scrolling of data? This
would tend to explain why the reports of health problems are often
from just a few data entry pools -- they may be the ones with this
type of editing or scanning task. It might also explain why studies
with mice have been negative: you can't get them to watch the screen
intently.
It would be interesting to know whether anyone has studied this
effect.
-- Ken Lawspgf@hou5g.UUCP (Paul Fox) (01/09/85)
a >I have occasionally become queasy when intently editing a long file >of addresses. I surmise that the intermittent, but nearly >continuous, upward scrolling has the same effect on my visual sense >as the picture of a heaving horizon would. > >Is it possible, then, that headaches, nausea, or even miscarriages, >are caused in some people by the constant scrolling of data? Fascinating idea! I've always noticed that I don't feel too good after, for instance, a long session of reading news, but I've always ascribed it to a management plot of some kind... :-) Seriously, though, scrolling tasks do bother me more than others. I wonder if there's a difference in the effects of smooth as opposed to jump scrolling? -- Paul Fox, AT&T Information Systems, Holmdel NJ. [ihnp4|vax135]!hou5g!pgf (201)834-3740
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (01/11/85)
I know several people who say that they use ``ooze mode'' (smooth scroll) because the jumping text makes them queezy. (I found this out when I did an office-to-office ``stamp out smooth scroll'' campaign, because the fool terminals couldn't keep up with the host in smooth scroll mode). I work the other way, though. When things are scrolling I find myself edging forward in anticipation, willing the text to crawl up the page. It makes reading news even more exhausting than it already is... I have the same problem reading text at 1200 baud, or even 2400 baud. What I like best is getting whole screens at 9600 baud where things happen too fast for me to watch them happening.... Question: do the people who feel queezy after reading long lists of text also see coloured splotches on the wall after they read such lists from stimulating the rods or cones in their eyes too long? Laura Creighton decvax!utzoo!laura@berkeley
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (01/14/85)
> mode). I work the other way, though. When things are scrolling I find > myself edging forward in anticipation, willing the text to crawl up > the page. It makes reading news even more exhausting than it already is... Why not use vnews? No scrolling unless you want to scroll half a screen up or down with ^D/^U. And for reading general text, more -c works fine for me. -- AMD assumes no responsibility for anything I may say here. Phil Ngai (408) 749-5790 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA
long@ittvax.UUCP (H. Morrow Long [Systems Center]) (01/15/85)
In my login for programs that use it.
setenv PAGER '/usr/ucb/page +/^$ %'
Use 'vnews' to read news.
Use 'page' to look at text files.
And see if you can get a terminal that can support 19,200 baud, of
course this speed used to kill the terminal i/o board of the Altos
586/986 to the detriment of other users, but it sure was fun to type:
cat /etc/termcap
H. Morrow Long
ITT-ATC Systems Center, Shelton, CT
path = {allegra bunker dcdvaxb dcdwest ucbvax!decvax duke eosp1 ittral
lbl-csam mit-eddie psuvax1 purdue qubix qumix research sii
tmmnet twg uf-cgrl wxlvax yale}!ittvax!longgeof@su-shasta.arpa (01/18/85)
From: imagen!geof@su-shasta.arpa Scrolling text gives me trouble too. The best solution I've seen for it is ``terminal wrap mode'' where the system causes just jumps to the beginning of the screen when it gets to the end of the screen. There is no scrolling at all, so you don't have to close your eyes while the text is being printed -- instead you can start reading. In true terminal wrap mode, each line is erased just before it is overwritten, so the entire terminal is still available for use, albeit that the `bottom' of the text is not at the bottom of the terminal. I used to read mail on a 60-line screen by manually generating a ``double buffered'' approach -- the system would stop at the bottom of the screen, and I would ^Q/^S to allow another half screen of text to arrive, so that I was reading the bottom of the screen when the top was being displayed, and vice versa. The MORE command on 4.1/4.2's (though not on some other systems) has a '-c' option (you can say 'more -c' to get it, or 'setenv MORE -c' to always get it) which gives a poor-man's wrap mode, where the screen is cleared between each screenful. I always use this now that I haven't access to true wrap mode, and find it much more pleasant than scrolling. I've tried smooth scroll. I find that it makes matters worse. The thing that gives me a headache is having to scroll my eyes vertically at all. Eyes aren't good at scrolling that way. Anything that requires them to do more eye-scrolling is worse for me, and slow-scroll keeps the text I am looking at in motion for longer each time it happens. - Geof
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (01/22/85)
> The MORE command on 4.1/4.2's (though not on some other systems) has a > '-c' option (you can say 'more -c' to get it, or 'setenv MORE -c' to > always get it) which gives a poor-man's wrap mode, where the screen is > cleared between each screenful. I always use this now that I haven't > access to true wrap mode, and find it much more pleasant than scrolling. If you use more -c on a terminal with erase-to-end-of-line, it will only clear each line as it wants to overwrite it, it does not clear the whole screen between each screenful. I use more -c all the time on my vt100 and it really is nice. What's sad is the folks at Amdahl working on uts don't know about this (because they run Uglix) and complain about how async terminals are inferior to their ebcdic terminals because of the scrolling. I claim ebcdic is inferior because you have to manually clear the screen before each new screenful. -- "Nations go to war over women like you, it's just a form of appreciation..." Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA