Re: [chat] MTA wars

[Benno <benjl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun Aug 10, 2003 at 01:27:09 +1000, Michael Lake wrote:
>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.

When I'm just reading documents I prefer just mousing it, so I find
the scroll wheel quite a nice feature. (And it keeps one hand free...)
Of course when I'm actually editing documents the mouse is useless.

Benno