From: bathurst@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Bruce Bathurst)
Subject: Re: Summary: Trackball vs. mouse
Originator: news@nimaster
Keywords: trackball, track ball
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 19:48:02 GMT

In article <1993Jan2.074518.3732@cs.uoregon.edu> akm@atlantix.cs.uoregon.edu
(Anant Kartik Mithal) writes:

>Can you define what these [different] purposes [of mice and
trackballs] are?

My language was careless.  I meant different purposes for touch
typists: minor editing, and formatting (with major editing such as
cutting and pasting).

>I think that you need to have some real evidence that secretaries
>actually need to keep their hands on the keyboard.

(I think we both mean eyes on the copy, here.  Hands off the keyboard
is not nearly so bad as losing one's place on the page or losing that
#&%*@%& tiny cursor on the screen.)

[SNIP,SNIP]

>I'd also suggest that the evidence needs
>to be recent because in light of the changes wrought in the workplace
>blycomputers, it might be that the kinds of tasks that secretaries do
>on computers with pointing devices has drastically changed.

Thinking about it, you're probably right.  My summer secretarial jobs
were ages ago--on typewriters.

>In cases where a command
>is one that has a long name (e.g. in Word, selecting a font or
>paragraph sytle), it can be quicker to use a mouse or other pointing
>device. Also, for example, some of the myraid and more obscure
>commands in Emacs that starts with a meta-x sequence. Like meta-x
>replace-string. 

This would be true if one is viewing the screen rather than a scrap of
scribble one's employer has placed in the input basket.  I was
thinking more of the CP/M (or MS-DOG) editor WordStar rather than
EMACS.  (Though in EMACS the more obscure commands are not bound to
keys exactly because they're used infrequently.)

>>Those who look at the keyboard aren't distracted by having to find a
>>mouse, though handicaped typists with limited movement find trackballs
>>better or necessary.

Yes, I was attempting to generalize based principally on where various
groups of people place their eyes while working.  Personal abilities
and habits would over-ride generalizations.  Some people have little
trouble keeping their place on paper or a screen (or finding the
cursor!).  One of my disabilities is immediate recall, so I can't use
the UNIX vi editor, which requires that one remember whether its in
edit or input mode.

P.S. I very much liked the descriptions of the keyboards with pointing devices
near or on the home keys!

P.P.S. Early on I discarded every bit of software that used function
keys, because I couldn't stand one key having several different
meanings.  I switched to command-driven inerfaces (XyWrite).  Because
I move around, I now use only an EMACS clone and TeX or troff.  They
also force me to to concentrate on writing rather than playing with
formatting when I'm at a writers' block.  When I write with
WordPerfect or something similar, I press the (choke) "hotkeys" on the
little pull- down menus--great for the absent minded.

Bruce (Itinerant Instructor)
-- 
Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors