Hank@sri-unix (08/13/82)
I don't use an Alto often enough to know whether a menu-driven system is the
best for everyday use. I do know that it is the best when you've forgotten
all the commands for that particular system.
An area where I claim menus are preferable over a keyboard are in graphics
systems. In particular, VLSI layout systems . You spend most of your time
moving the mouse (tablet puck in our case) around clicking tablet buttons.
In the particular system that we use (Caesar), there is no menu on the screen.
The system is written so that you can avoid the keyboard almost all of the
time, but as the design becomes more and more complete, I find myself using
the keyboard more often, since I need to use more complex commands. Everyone
that I know who uses Caesar complains about this. They want a menu for the
most common commands. Setup and cleanup commands can of course stay on
the keyboard since they are rarely used.
>From my own experience using other layout systems that are menu driven, I
know that they increase your performance by eliminating the need to take
your hand off of the puck (I don't type well with only my left hand).