lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (Pascal Chesnais) (02/05/91)
I'd like to remind the people who are dissatisfied with the new keyboards that they have a responsibility as consumers to let NeXT know their opinions about their products. It is such frank communications that resulted in Lotus removing one of their products from the market. NeXT does listen to its customers. pasc
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (02/05/91)
In article <5111@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (Pascal Chesnais) writes:
I'd like to remind the people who are dissatisfied with the new
keyboards that they have a responsibility as consumers to let
NeXT know their opinions about their products. It is such
frank communications that resulted in Lotus removing one
of their products from the market.
Which Lotus product are you talking about?
NeXT does listen to its customers.
How are we suppose to tell them? NeXT, I don't need a return key that
big!! Put the extra key back on the keyboard. Don't the programmers
at NeXT find the new keyboards an inconvenience?
-Mikelouie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) (02/05/91)
In article <_u8G$b1f@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >How are we suppose to tell them? NeXT, I don't need a return key that >big!! Pick up the phone, and call the (free) 800 number and explain that you are very unhappy about the new keyboard layout, and that you won't buy a computer with a crummy, user unfriendly keyboard. Or, if you bought a system, you can complain that all the demo units you saw had the "classic" keyboard and that the marketing glossies have the "classic" keyboard and that you want and expect the product that you ORDERED and PAID for. If you were buying a car, I'd call it bait and switch. Call your salesman, your campus computer store or your Businessland store and explain that you are an UNHAPPY customer, and that you CANNOT recommend the purchase of a computer with such a blecherous keyboard to any of your friends or business associates. Or tell them that as a prospective customoer, you can't possibly live with a computer with a broken keyboard. This mean lost sales for them. Think of it this way; it was marketing slime that likely caused this atrocity to happen. The the marketing people the kind of stuff that they want to hear. Just because the European market demands an unusable keyboard is no reason we should be stuck with one. (This is the explanation/excuse that I've been told.) louie
kjell@saturn.ucsc.edu (Kjell Post) (02/06/91)
In article <1991Feb5.032803.23922@ni.umd.edu> louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >Just because the European market demands an >unusable keyboard is no reason we should be stuck with one. (This is >the explanation/excuse that I've been told.) > >louie We don't want it either! I type a lot of Swedish text and the '|' is used as a replacement for the o-with-umlaut character. Not to mention plumbing-work in UNIX... <sigh>. I'd be interested to hear if anyone has figured out a good place for putting that "lost" key back on the keyboard. -- For athletes and programmers, ! Kjell E. Post a woman is the end of their career. ! CIS/CE ! University of California, Santa Cruz -- A.Wickberg ! Email: kjell@saturn.ucsc.edu
carlton@aldebaran (Mike Carlton) (02/06/91)
In article <11946@darkstar.ucsc.edu> kjell@saturn.ucsc.edu (Kjell Post) writes: >In article <1991Feb5.032803.23922@ni.umd.edu> louie@sayshell.umd.edu (Louis A. Mamakos) writes: >>Just because the European market demands an >>unusable keyboard is no reason we should be stuck with one. (This is >>the explanation/excuse that I've been told.) >> >>louie > >We don't want it either! I type a lot of Swedish text and the '|' is >used as a replacement for the o-with-umlaut character. Not to mention >plumbing-work in UNIX... <sigh>. > >I'd be interested to hear if anyone has figured out a good place for >putting that "lost" key back on the keyboard. I put the pipe on shift-delete. Normally shift-delete produces backspace, but I don't use it (besides there is always cntl-h). After a little searching, I found the right bytes to munge in the keymapping to produce the pipe. You want to replace the sequence 'stx nul del nul bs' with 'stx nul del nul |'. It is at offset 0312 in USA.keymapping, i.e. 'od -a /NextLibrary/Keyboards/USA.keymapping | grep 0000300' produces: 0000300 soh - nul nul 2 nul nul 5 del del stx nul del nul bs nl I copied the USA.keymapping to ~/Library/Keyboards/pipe.keymapping and munged it, restarted Preferences and selected the new mapping and it works like a charm. Cheers, --mike Mike Carlton carlton@cs.berkeley.edu
barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (02/06/91)
melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >Don't the programmers >at NeXT find the new keyboards an inconvenience? No, they're all using NeXTStep 2.1 which supports telepathic input :-) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)
coco@cbnewsl.att.com (felix.a.lugo) (02/06/91)
In article <1046@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: | melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: | | >Don't the programmers | >at NeXT find the new keyboards an inconvenience? | | No, they're all using NeXTStep 2.1 which supports telepathic input :-) | Probably they're still using the original keyboards and haven't even seen the new versions, or, they were probably as surprised as you and I are after they saw them. If I were NeXT, I would not go out and replace developer's keyboards every time a new design comes along. (Maybe NeXT is now replacing developer's keyboard for the ones customers turn in. They get the new versions, we get the good ones.) 8^) /* ** ============================================================================ ** ** Felix A. Lugo AT&T Bell Laboratories ** ** E-Mail: ** (708) 713-4374 coco@ihlpb.att.com att!ihlpb!coco ** ** NeXT-Mail: ** (708) 515-0668 coco@alien.att.com alien.att.com!bootsie!coco ** ** ============================================================================ */
carlton@aldebaran (Mike Carlton) (02/07/91)
In article <10811@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> carlton@aldebaran.berkeley.edu (Mike Carlton) writes: -- a bunch of useless stuff about moving the pipe to shift-del OK, I was pretty cryptic in my previous message. In short, I found the delete key entry in a keymap and and posted it's location. I got several responses requesting info on how to actually change it. Below is source to a quick hack that reads a keymap on stdin and changes the shift-del character to one given on the command line. To run, compile this and run "a.out '|' </NextLibrary/Keyboards/USAkeymapping >new.keymapping". Move new.keymapping to ~/Library/Keyboards, /NextLibrary/Keyboards or /LocalLibrary/Keyboards, restart Preferences and it will appear in the list of keyboards. If anyone needs a compiled copy of this, send me mail and I'll email a uuencoded copy to you. Cheers, --mike Mike Carlton carlton@cs.berkeley.edu --------- cut here ------------------------------------------------------------- #include <stdio.h> #define stx '\002' #define nul '\000' #define del '\177' char delmap[] = { stx, nul, del, nul }; /* Next char is shift-del */ int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int i, bytes; char buf[1024], *key, *lim; if (argc != 2) { fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s shift_del_char\n", argv[0]); fprintf(stderr, "Reads a keymap on stdin and writes modified one to stdout\n"); exit(1); } bytes = fread(buf, sizeof(char), 1024, stdin); key = buf; lim = key+bytes; while (key < lim) { for (i=0; i<4; i++) if (key[i] != delmap[i]) break; if (i == 4) { /* matched */ key[4] = argv[1][0]; break; } else key++; } if (key == lim) { fprintf(stderr, "Del key map not found\n", argv[0]); exit(1); } fwrite(buf, sizeof(char), bytes, stdout); return 0; } Mike Carlton carlton@cs.berkeley.edu
glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) (02/09/91)
In article <10839@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> carlton@aldebaran.berkeley.edu (Mike Carlton) writes: >Below is source to a quick hack that reads a keymap on stdin and changes the >shift-del character to one given on the command line. To run, compile >this and run "a.out '|' </NextLibrary/Keyboards/USAkeymapping >new.keymapping". This is a great hack, and it seems to work well, except that it should be "USA.keymapping" in your example above. But what about the backslash character? That's still lurking over on the numeric keypad.... As long as we're chorusing, I don't like the new keyboards either, and if NeXT offered the old one, I would throw this one away. It amuses me that the NeXTstation comes with a manual called "Here's how to set up your computer and get up to speed," in which they talk about pressing the "Delete" key and the "Tab" key, but the keys are labeled "<--" and "|<-- -->|" on the actual keyboard. It is a beautiful book, though. -- Glenn Reid RightBrain Software glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-851-1785 (fax 851-1470)
pclark@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Peter Clark) (02/09/91)
Here's my $0.02 worth: I would like to see NeXT adapt Apple's Desktop Bus standard. At the risk of annoying the religious folk, the Desktop bus strikes me as being a great idea. Letting the user choose what input device to use, whether it's a mouse or a trackball or a digitizing pad, or a keyboard with or without function keys, and whether it's from apple/NeXT/datadesk/whoever, is surely part of computing access for the masses. I love the next, and I prefer the old keyboards. I wouldn't mind being able to take the old NeXT keyboard and attaching it to a mac or a pc, for that matter. Pete Clark
jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr9.122402.5072@wam.umd.edu> mikec@wam.umd.edu (Michael D. Callaghan) writes: > In article <473@heaven.woodside.ca.us> glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > > > >Scott Bennett writes > >Although the key cap doesn't show it, Shift-Escape yields a tilde on > >the old keyboard. I think that's a pretty standard place for it. > >Too bad the key doesn't show it. I think the old keyboard is pretty > >close to perfect, and I'm pretty picky about my keyboards. > > > >I still haven't learned to like the new keyboard. Can't live without > >\ and | somewhere reachable. > > > >But, before we get going on this again, we must realize that keyboards > >are highly personal things and SOMEONE must like the new keyboard. If > >you're out there, and you really LIKE it, send me some mail. I've never > >heard anybody say anything nicer than "I can tolerate it." I don't particulary like either the new or the old keyboards. Oh, by and large the keys are in reasonable places. But it just doesn't feel right. There is not enough tactile respnse from the keys. But then again, this seems to be, perhaps, a problem with Steve Jobs companies: they don't care about the feel of the keyboards. The original Mac keyboard was the worst keyboard I've ever had to type on. The newer Mac keyboards are a bit better (about on par with the NeXT keyboard) but aren't up to the really top-of-the-line keyboards you can find in the PC world. Tactile feedback really is very important to touch typists, something the PC world seems to have figured out but neither the Mac nor NeXT worlds have. Jim Mann jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com Stratus Computer
hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu (Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy)) (04/10/91)
I guess if you have one hand on the mouse you are only half a touch-typist. My impression is that mouseless keyboards were better! The |\ keys can (and have) be reassigned; but there are still conflicts in remote login situations. I wish NeXT would make the reveres L-shaped return key with a removable key-cap under which one can find the old \| key, for us TeX-ers. (What;'s worse, SoftPC -- where you really need the \ key, has put that one on the = of the keypad!). Greetings, Hardy -------****------- Meinhard E. Mayer (Hardy); Department of Physics, University of California Irvine CA 92717; (714) 856 5543; hardy@golem.ps.uci.edu or MMAYER@UCI.BITNET
nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk (Nigel Metheringham) (04/10/91)
In <4989@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann) writes: [quoting a number of other people....text deleted] >I don't particulary like either the new or the old keyboards. Oh, by and large >the keys are in reasonable places. The argument about where they keys should be is going to run and run - as a Unix user moving to NeXT I am not keen on the relegation of unix-ish keys (ie tilda, pipe, slashes etc) to the keypad, but I seem to be getting used to it very quickly! >But it just doesn't feel right. There is >not enough tactile respnse from the keys. But then again, this seems to >be, perhaps, a problem with Steve Jobs companies: they don't care about the >feel of the keyboards. The original Mac keyboard was the worst keyboard >I've ever had to type on. The newer Mac keyboards are a bit better (about on >par with the NeXT keyboard) but aren't up to the really top-of-the-line >keyboards you can find in the PC world. Tactile feedback really is very >important to touch typists, something the PC world seems to have figured >out but neither the Mac nor NeXT worlds have. The basic problem is that everyone has their own opinions on keyboards - I happen to like the feel of the NeXT (new) keyboard, hate the Dec VT220 (too squidgy), and most IBM PC keyboards (to clacky). What we really need is a _standard_ keyboard connector so that you buy in your own preferred keyboard and use that. Within one research group here, with about 5 people in it, I know of at least 4 set keyboard opinions! One of my co-workers, who has extremely strong opinions on keyboards (his idea of heaven appears to be a Sun 3 keyboard, although they tend to gunge up and suffer from sticky keys), spent better than half an hour berating a rep from TeleVideo who had loaned us a demo terminal - the poor girl was rather relieved to escape!! BTW Shift-Escape gives tilda on a new keyboard as well. Nigel. -- # Nigel Metheringham # EMail: nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk # # System Administrator # Phone: +44 904 432374 # # Department of Electronics # Fax: +44 904 432335 # # University of York, Heslington, York, UK, YO1 5DD #
mcohen@speech-sun.ntt.JP (mcohen) (04/13/91)
I'm coming in late to the keyboard debate, but lemme throw in my own litany about the NeXT-specific keys, namely the mute (command key) and the power button. The mute function should not be a toggle: why should the user have to guess if the sound is currently on or off? Just listening doesn't make it, as a song or voiceover could be in a quiet interlude, or the volume could be turned low. IMHO, the right way to implement this function (in the absence of a AlphaLock-like light) is to make "Sound On" the Command- extension of the louder key, and "Sound Off" the extension of the quieter key. Similarly, the power key should be expanded to "Power On"/"Power Off". In the States, i just left my cube on all the time, but here in Japan they're maniacs about turning things off, dimming screens, etc. I wouldn't need to guess the state of the machine if this feature were implemented correctly. Idempotency is a powerful notion; sometimes the ability to do nothing conveniently is all i need.