Re: [chat] MTA wars

[Michael Lake <mikel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Malcolm V wrote:

> On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 13:38, Michael Lake wrote:
> > Yes actually. Jill and I have one at home. It still works fine. Jill and 
> > I are quite attached to it as it's a nice PC. Its got a really neat LCD 
> > on the keyboard to show re-assigned keys (something like that).

> That LCD screen still amazes me, it was a superb idea. (Imagine pre-gui
> days when all "menus" are key driven. Your function keys are the top of
> the menu for your application, and printed on the LCD above F1 is
> "File", etc. When you press F1, the LCD is updated and now printed above
> F1 is "Open", F2 is "Save",etc.)
>
> I've longed for such a keyboard every since I first saw it (and
> reprogrammed the display for my Father so all the words were printed
> backwards and transposed) on the Apricot some 15 odd years ago. The only
> other interface features that come close to its level of useful
> innovation are the scroll wheel and optical mice.

Ummm.... I dont think the scroll wheel is that great. Its a another 
sneaky M$ method to keep users hands on the mice instead of on the 
keyboard. Using the keyboard and sensible mapped keys for moving around 
a document (i.e. using either emacs or vim) is far more efficient for 
text. Mouses are good for CAD things.

Mike
--
Mike Lake
Caver, Linux enthusiast and interested in anything technical.