COMSAT@MIT-MC@sri-unix (09/09/82)
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Mail-from: ARPANET site RUTGERS rcvd at 8-Sep-82 1105-PDT
Date: 8 Sep 1982 1406-EDT
From: Mel Pleasant <WORKS at RUTGERS>
Subject: WORKS Digest V2 #77
Sender: PLEASANT at RUTGERS
To: WorkS: ;
Reply-To: WORKS at RUTGERS
Works Digest Wednesday, 8 September 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 77
Today's Topics:
Technology - User Interfaces,
Hardware - Mice vs the World & Swiss Mice &
The Fortune WorkStation,
Programming - Screen Editors
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Date: 20 August 1982 2038-PDT (Friday)
From: davidson <sdcsvax!davidson@nprdc>
To: Human-nets at Rutgers
Subject: Text input CAN be done with other than 2 handed keyboards
You can use a chord keyboard with one hand and a mouse with the
other (5 buttons on the left hand plus three on the mouse gives you
plenty of codes). If you're using a light pen, you can use either a
chord keyboard or simply handwrite. Hand printing recognition is a
solved problem (at least for a known writer), although it is
certainly slower than a keyboard -- although I don't know if anyone
has investigated the possibilities raised by augmenting the alphabet
with special (drawn) symbols for special purposes. Does anyone know
of any workstations which make significant use of handwritten input?
I suspect that a mouse plus chord keyboard is the best available
technology for general computer work. You can also shift your mouse
hand to a second chord keyboard when you're typing straight text:
The extra codes allow you to use lots of abbreviations.
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Date: 23 Aug 82 11:11:44-EDT (Mon)
From: Don Cates <dcates@Darcom-HQ>
Subject: Re: Mice vs the World
The first time I saw a system that allowed the input of documents
with other than keyboard or magnetic entry was at Micronet, Inc.,
"the Paperless Office", Watergate Mall, 2551 Virginia Ave., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20037 telephone (202) 333-4800. They have an
Optical Character Reader (OCR) Scanner that is programmable to
accept new fonts. Output from the system can be placed on microforms
in an OCR font that can be printed by an OCR reader/printer and
scanned again for re-entry. The equipment prices are obviously
above that of a home computer system for the time being but
organizations may be able to use it with service center or contract
approaches. Micronet continually schedules tours through their
facilities if your interested.
Don Cates
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Date: 31 Aug 1982 11:45:19-EST
From: Chris Kent <cak at Purdue>
Subject: Swiss Mice
Could someone send me the address of the company in Switzerland that
is purveying mice? I can't seem to find it in my records. I want to
put a mouse on my new terminal, but the $415 Jack Hawley is charging
is a bit too steep for my budget. I seem to recall a figure of $275
from Switzerland.
Cheers,
chris
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Date: 5 Sep 82 14:40:09-EDT (Sun)
From: Ron Minnich <minnich.EE@UDel-Relay>
Subject: Fortune workstation and the $10K question
I finally got around to seeing a Fortune the other day. It is a
real nice little machine, and appears to be running a fairly
straightforward, up-to-date version of Unix(there is even a
/usr/ucb directory). The machine I saw had an eight Mb hard disk, 5
1/4" floppy, 1/4 Mb memory, eight unused expansion slots, and a
price of about $9500. Available options are high-res display (no
numbers on this), 2 or four RS-232 ports per expansion slot- 2/$395
or 4/$495, more memory and of course more hard disk. The built-in
controller will support up to three more hard disks. It does not
look like they sell different Unix's for single and multi-terminal
users, so one could buy an RS-232 board, hook up a terminal, and
run. All the pieces are connected by phone-company style modular
jacks.
Does anyone out there know what sort-if any- memory management
this machine provides. Is it possible for a runaway program to write
over the kernel?
Which brings me to the $10K question:
Are there other machines that provide more for the money? The
Wicat 150 looks like a pretty good deal. How is the Unix that runs
on it? Will the Lisa run Unix? Smalltalk is all well and good, but
for that price I want Unix as well.
Comments, anyone?
ron
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Date: 29 August 1982 06:20-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Subject: There's no such thing as a screen editor..
To: DEG at SCRC-TENEX
It is true that most programs treat their terminals like model 35 or
37 (not 33) TTYs (i.e. upper and lower case, unlike the 33). That
is because most systems don't implement primitives for screen
management, but do implement primitives for reading and printing
characters sequentially TTY-style.
TTY-style does have two advantages:
(1) It's easier to document a program if interactions run down the
page, so you can simply print the input and output in two colors
to explain the whole example. Mouse/cursor interactions are harder
to document in hardcopy.
(2) When you make a mistake you can see it still in the transcript
before it rolls off the screen. With screen-editing the stuff you
did wrong isn't in any particular place and in fact might be
totally invisible even immediately after the error.
Thus if it isn't strictly necessary for the application to use
random screen access, TTY-style access may be chosen even when
random screen access is available.
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End of WorkS Digest
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