GUMBY%MIT-OZ%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (07/06/83)
From: David Vinayak Wallace <GUMBY%MIT-OZ@mit-mc>
Date: Fri Jul 1 15:08:45 1983
From: brucec@orca.UUCP
An experimental
device developed at MIT a few years ago could get pressure and
pressure vector information at high resolution from a finger touch.
...It was possible to push a cursor around, and even rotate it properly,
by holding a finger against the screen at one point and pushing
obliqely. This is nice for human interface, because the kinesthetic
sense gets much more precise feedback from force than it does from
position..
I built one of these in Paris for Negroponte last summer. It also
had a NEC speech recogniser on it. You had to use a starset to talk
to it, but it was a lot of fun to use. I made some menus that you
could push around. We had a lot of trouble with the TSD though; it
tended to generate a lot of spurious points, especially when the
attack angle was too oblique.
I have since also realised that these things don't really give you
much tactile feedback. If the TSD shifts too much you either get sore
fingers or hysteresis (depending on the strength of the springs). The
"feedback" you get from the motion of the cursor is like the feedback
from electronic keyclick; related, but requiring more psychology than
instinct.
My vote for the absolute best pointing device interface goes to the "Put
That There" system implemented on the Media Room facility at the MIT
Architecture Machine Group. Here the operator sits in a comfortable, high
backed lounge chair in front of a large rear-projection color video
screen. To point to something, he literally points his finger...
and speaks a command. No buttons, no styli, no muss, no fuss.
This sort of thing will be great once somebody builds real computers;
with to-day's (or ARCMAC's) technology it's just too damned slow. The
computation required to parse the user's speech (not to mention
redrawing the entire huge screen they use) is REALLY amazing. It's
impressive but impractical. It does make you think, though (and
perhaps more eager to do research?)
Also, you have to point at large things only, and you need lots of
hairy computation (read AI) to figure out what's being referred to.
Your hand shakes a lot and usually points inaccurately.
Don't forget that the technology so many are taking for granted to-day
is already an order of magnitude more computationally complex than
people had 10 years ago! I'm typing on a terminal with a 68000 in it;
it's hooked up to a dedicated micro. 10 years ago (had I been
computing then) I would have used a line editor, and most likely a
printing terminal! I certainly wouldn't have had a computer just to
do my editing (not to mention one to run my terminal!)
So despite all the hairy hardware, I guess my choice is a (more
reliable than current) mouse and a tablet. Does anyone know what the
best tablet on the market is?
david wallace
GUMBY@MIT-MC
.. decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!gumby