chin (04/03/83)
From: chin (David Chin) To: net-works I would like to suggest replacing mice on work-stations with track-balls. Many video-game players have shown that track-balls are capable of very high-speed/high-accuracy positioning. Also, track-balls cost less than most mice (at least the cheap track-balls do) and they take up much less space than mice pads. Is there any reason why this has not been tried? If people have considered this, I would like to hear what the conclusions were. Along the same lines, one could even make large track-balls which are suitable for use with feet on the floor, thus freeing up the hands for continuous typing (you could move the buttons on the mice to the keyboard). David Chin ucb-vax!chin chin@berkeley
dbw (04/05/83)
I think a better place to put trakballs would be on top of the terminal,
and possibly one on the wall, rather than on the floor to be used
with your feet. This way we can all keep our nose to the grindstone,
and our shoulder to the wheel.
David B. Wollner
{sdcvax,sdcsvax}!bmcg!dbwTyson@SRI-AI.ARPA (04/06/83)
From: Mabry Tyson <Tyson@SRI-AI.ARPA>
(For those on INFO-ATARI, this is in reply to a message on WORKS about
using trackballs instead of mice.)
One of the problems I have with mice is that it is a distraction to move
my hands away from the keyboard to move the mouse and then back again
(sometimes missing the home position).
I feel that a possible good solution would be to have a trackball below
the heel of my right hand (or maybe both so lefties are not at a disadvantage).
>From my video pinball experience, I feel that I would be able to spin the
ball without moving my forearm very much at all.
Advantages: Less distraction in transferring between keyboard and pointing
device. Less desk space required. Less slippage (which is quite bad on the
mechanical mice I use). One single piece (keyboard) versus two (keyboard and
mouse).
Disadvantages: Probably slower on long moves. Larger keyboard. May not
be as easy for different styles of typists (ie, those who type with the
keyboard in their lap).
?????: No separate mouse keys (although they could be placed for your thumb to
hit). But you have the whole keyboard at your fingertips for potentially more
mouse keys. (Consider another 'shift' key (yet-another if you use a Lisp
machine), call it MOUSE, which says the (normal) key you type is a mouse key.
So, after moving to a point you could press MOUSE-S for Select or MOUSE-G for
Get or whatever. Note that on the Symbolics Lisp machines, depressing SHIFT
and clicking a button on the mouse is equivalent to clicking the button
twice - an indication that 3 buttons is not enough.)
At the recent Computer Faire in San Francisco, I did suggest putting a
trackball into a keyboard to a manufacturer of trackballs. Maybe they will
do it for micros?
(If anyone else on this list has an Atari 800 and a trackball (which I have),
we could probably change the screen editor to act upon the trackball
input as well as the cursor positioning keys. Since my WICO trackball works
by pulsing joystick signals, the same code would work for using a joystick
to move around the screen. Maybe someone knows of software for that
already??)
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