On 23 May 2001 2:49:6 +0100, Iggy Drougge wrote: #Louis Schulman skrev: [note: I didn't skrev anything, I can't even speak Swedish!] # #>On Tue, 22 May 2001 16:26:44 -0700, Chris Halarewich wrote: # #>#at the local salvation army today came across a computer/wordprosser #>#unit made by Cannon called the Cannon Cat any info on this would be #>most grateful # #>Buy it and send it to me immediately! I will reimburse you your cost, #>shipping and a $10 finder's fee. # #Louis, is your interest purely academical, or do dedicated wordpro's appeal to #some of your base instincts? #Please, enlighten us. ;-9 # As noted in another post, the Cannon Cat was much more than a dedicated word processor, it was in fact a quite different technology that never caught on. It is highly collectable, at least in THIS country. And anyway, how can I take a question seriously from someone who has never stuck a voltage probe into an electric socket? I do it all the time, just for fun, and to set my hair. Louis

It was thus said that the Great "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" once stated: Fair enough. Me, while I like knowing how the computer works, most of the time *I* don't care enough to manually tweak something, or babysit some annoyingly written piece of software. I want my computer to run without thought. And that probably explains why I drive an automatic car (it even turns the headlights on automatically). Sure, I know how a car works (generally, with some gaps in knowledge here and there) but I view it more as something to use. Same with most computers I work with (and that's one of my biggest gripes with poorly run Unix networks---babysitting the damn things [1]). Similar to Unix and the ``rm'' command---make one slight mistake and well ... Have backup? Nothing worse than finding the ``rm'' command aliased to ``rm -i''. Yes! Yes! Delete the files! Aaaaaaah! /bin/rm blah blah. It depends on what you're used to. And when I read about that (in Microsoft's ``Programmers At Work''---great book by the way) I thought it was the coolest thing. I felt it made a lot of sense, but yes, I can see it being problematic in a heterogeneous setup, which I think is your concern. In his interview in ``Programmers at Work,'' he stated he didn't care for mice at all, as it forces you to relocate your hands from the keyboard to the mouse, and that most navigation could be done faster via the keyboard than with a mouse [3]. And his current work he mentions his dislike of the mouse. If it was him (and not Jobs) those are valid reasons, but it's not too difficult to color the buttons differently (or put a pip on one of them like my keyboard here has pips on the `f' and `j' keys [4]) and label one the primary button the other the secondary button. But left handed people present another problem in which the buttons need to be reversed (easily enough via software). Ah well. That's still a pretty big keyboard (I'm looking at it right now). The idea of using the keyboard *as* the mouse (as in, the keyboard can slide around) is intriguing, but I'm not sure if I would want my keyboad to slide around like that. -spc (I really enjoy Raskin's work though ... ) [1] I work in the NOC (Network Operations Center) at a large company, so all I'm really concerned with is monitoring the network and servers (if something goes down, I call SA). No administration, no development. Some of the SAs are complaining about zombies [2] and it bugs *ME* (because I'm that way 8-) that the SAs have to manually go in and kill them (even if it's to run a shell script which does it). I know how to fix the programs causing the zombies and it's only a few lines of code (in C even!) that need to be added. But it's a large company. Sigh. [2] Zombies are zombie processes under Unix that are caused when a child process exits but the parent process doesn't check the status. They don't really consume any resources other than a process slot, but the fact they're there is annoying. [3] In my experience, that's true once you learn how to navigate a document via the keyboard. But there are some things I like using a mouse for though. [4] The Apple keyboards have the pips on the `d' and `k' keys, which annoys me, but I understand the reasoning behind Apple doing that (middle finger is longer than the rest and will hit the keyboard first, hence the pips on `d' and `k').

At 07:32 PM 5/22/01 -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote: OK, let's race. I think it's easy to think of counter-examples, even though I'm a fan of command-line power in the right situation. Given a folder full of 100 documents with long, human-friendly filenames with no relevant pattern involving strings of characters or dates, delete a given random set of 50 of those files. I'll use any windowing system, you'll use 'del' or 'rm'. I think an extended select (via CTRL) and a drag to the trash would win on either Mac or Windows, don't you? While 'rm' might have an interactive "yes/no" option, which other command-line tools have it? Sure, you can write anything in a script... - John

At 09:32 AM 5/23/01 -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote: Sorry about that, I posted too quickly. - John

On 23-May-2001 liste(a)artware.qc.ca wrote: Eeek! Change this to rm `cat something` -Philip

An interesting thread, I particularly like the ctrl-click vs vi comparison, I have to go with John on that one, if you know enough about your computer to use vi a similar level of skill on a windoze computer would know about ctrl-click. This property makes an interesting point about the discussion: "Who is the user?" I've mentioned here and elsewhere that I 'think' in vi/make style but my college age friends who grew up with Visual BASIC or VC++ "think" in that style. They achieve similar efficiencies. Both Tog and Jef presume either "completely new user" or "one familiar with the machine" for all their tests I believe. (They both answer email so they would be the ultimate source of information ...) The second interesting point is a piece of Microsoft hardware that I think has to end up as Classic eventually is this thing under my left hand called a 'Strategic Commander.' M$ built it as a game controller for real time strategy games, but what they build was a chord keyboard with three an additional three analog inputs. It works by inject USB keystrokes into the 'path' as it were. This has the potential (its fully programmable) to fully implement Englebart's vision of a mouse/chord combo for maximum navigation speeds. --Chuck

At 12:46 PM 5/23/01 -0500, you wrote: Yes! That's how different Windows and Unix users are :-) . carlos. -------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org

The "classic" way to do this is emacs "dired". I'll beat your WIMP interface with my kbd every time. -Mike "Emacs isn't an editor; it's a religion." - rms at an SVLUG meeting, before rendering St. Ignucious (get it? I-GNU-cious...) with a 14" disk platter on his head for a "halo" effect. On Wed, 23 May 2001, John Foust wrote:

I am all for genius first, an indescribable quality where simplicity allows for all the functionality that came before it with none of the confusion. Since genius insight can't be scheduled for (EG 'in 2003 we will have voice interfacing finally productized') and is currently thwarted by the MS monopoly, here's my take on a few other things. Mouse: shouldn't be necessary, except for draw programs. My walk around computer is an old laptop running w3.11 with the mouse detached. Can do everything I want with it using tab sequences. w95+ disallows lots of this simplicity by moving some commands from menus to toolbars, Yuk. Using a mouse while word processing will make more sense when I grow a third hand. Right now its Lift over, lift back, etc. Unix: the power of the commandline and sumpeme interoperability. Could someone show me how to automate Excel and Word together in one bat file? Oh that's right, I have to buy VB. And keep upgrading it. I should add a paragraph here about all the good Unix experiences. Robustness: How many situations in w95 where <Esc>ape doesn't. How many times is it Close versus Quit? Where <Cut> and <Copy> accelerators are forgotten? Where is that 'Word' subcommand anyway, was it organized by committee? (Never mind all the hangs). John A.

They were actually pretty capable though if you really got to know how to pass variables between the batch file and programs you were calling. I seem to recall there being quite a few classes on batch file programming, as well as numerous books. Jeff -- Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems: Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

Desperately needed: Memorex/Telex terminals Specifically and only models: R4078 (900607) and 080A These are used by some of our major Airline customers and Decision One (Thier and my contractor) wants to buy a few for stock. They can sell for between one and three hundred dollars US. The latter sells for no more than $150.00US. The machines need to be in working order and in reasonably decent cosmetic condition. Please contact me at the addresses/numbers below or by cell phone at 828-280-7775. Your help is greatly appreciated. Regards and thanks again, Jeff -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey S. Worley President Complete Computer Services, Inc. 30 Greenwood Rd. Asheville, NC 28803 828-277-5959 Visit our website at HTTP://www.Real-Techs.com THETechnoid(a)home.com -----------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 22 May 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: In addition to a heterogeneous environment http://www.xenosoft.com/fmts.html there is also the issue that I would like a chance to try to manually recover data before the system wipes the disk. But for many people his system would be ideal. Recently (YESTERDAY) he claimed credit for the decision (in a semi-private forum). I have no reason to doubt his word. He is well worth reading/listening to, regardless of whether one agrees with him! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

At 11:10 PM 5/22/01 -0400, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: It's interesting to note that another Apple-raised interface theorist, Bruce Tognazzini, http://www.asktog.com/ believes (and claims to have tested and proved) that keyboard-based, chording shortcut users engage in a momentary lapse of consciousness in which they recall and then position their hands for the keystroke, and that although they *think* they're faster than a mouse, they're not. See his 1991 book "Tog on Interface", where he claims in the 80s Apple performed $50M in tests that showed that people consistently reported believing that keyboarding (using shortcuts, etc.) was faster than mousing, yet the stopwatch consistently showed that mousing was faster than keyboarding. His explanation for this is that deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function, and that this decision is not only boring, but that the user experiences near-amnesia in the approximately two seconds needed to remember the chord keystroke. On the other hand, Tog also argues that two-handed chords (think the handy cut-and-paste CTRL/C /V) result in solid productivity gains. Around page 180, where in fact he discusses Raskin's Cat interface and the decision to use a single dedicated key for operations such as "Find", Tog admits was actually fifty times faster than the Mac's mouse-move. This reminds me of the old joke about voice interface word processors: "Up, up, up, left, left, left, left, no right, stop, yes, right there ... delete that word." Or the other half of the joke, where people poke their head over a cubicle wall and shout a command like "format c: yes i am sure". - John

Well, you have to read carefuly, since the above description is shortened. The mouse is faster if you have _only_ shortcuts and a system of endless combination. Just think about all these shells for Emacs. On the other hand, if you only have a few functions, especialy when they offered to the usa via special keys (not keycombinations or spread out shortcuts) the keyboard interface is again faster. And you're unbeatable when you combine both. If you ever worked on a Xerox, where you had the copy/move/prop/... special keys on the left hand side of your keyboard you'd know how easy handling can be ... unlike todays interface, where you use the mouse for several thing, here the little critter was only a pointing device, while you selected most functions via keys (and your left hand). In fact, I still belive we schould go back there and add some keys - the old PC Keyboard could be used in a similar way, and one of my first tasks I did with GEM on the PC was a Desktop which used the function keys in a way similar to the Xerox system. -- VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

At 01:06 PM 5/23/01 -0400, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote: Got me. As they say, read the book. Perhaps he's still trying to justify spending $50M on these tests. :-) At 07:32 PM 5/23/01 +0200, Hans Franke wrote: Sometimes I still miss the old PC keyboards that had the function keys on the left. Along with my Brief bindings, text editing was a snap. - John