30 Sep
2010
30 Sep
'10
4:39 a.m.
On 30 September 2010 06:27, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
*I* want one of those new mice. ?Why? Because I
want a scroll wheel that's not a "wheel" (I find them very difficult to
use), and I want two-finger zoom manipulation. ?This is real functionality
that I will use every day...I know this because my laptop has that
functionality in its trackpad, and I use it to great advantage.
That's interesting. I find a wheel easier than 2-finger gestures. Mind
you, I preferred the system on the Acorn Archimedes, where
left-clicking a scrollbar arrow scrolled in the direction it pointed
but *right*-clicking it scrolled the opposite way. This was so simple
and efficient that there was no need for a wheel, really. Nobody has
ever implemented 3-button mouse support as efficiently and gracefully
as Acorn RISC OS did, to my mind.
But more generally, I think I am seeing an interesting trend which I
find positive: the gradual removal of mechanical, moving parts from
PCs (and Macs). Spinning HDDs are gradually being replaced by SSDs.
Floppy drives have pretty much gone; optical drives will follow them
in time. Blueray is probably the last iteration of that technology,
although we might see a physical media shrink of it first, before it
goes.
The last hold-out is the cooling fan and they are a real point of
weakness, as they clog up with dust and cause the system to fail. I
hope to see some improved, solid-state cooling mechanisms come along
and deliver sealed-box, airtight PCs with no moving parts or airflow
inside.
Then the only bits that move will be the keyboards and mice. Mice I
regard as relatively disposable; optical ones are cheap and work well,
so despite my initial reservations about the "waste" of CPU power on
tracking the movement of the desk surface underneath the sensor, hell,
it's worth it. They're cheap, simple, need next to no cleaning or
maintenance and last for ages. Some of mine are now pushing a decade
old, work fine and have outlived 2, 3 or 4 PCs.
So a mouse with no moving parts, no microswitches or buttons, could
only be an improvement, in that sense. I want the thing to have a
damned cable, though, not a wireless transciever and batteries. Too
untrendy for Apple but perhaps someone will find a way to clone the
Magic Mouse without infringing.
As for keyboards, well, some of my Model Ms are now pushing 25, so I
am not worried about their longevity. :?)
--
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