Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!SCFVM.BITNET!ZMLEB From: ZMLEB@SCFVM.BITNET (Lee Brotzman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: FORTH, the language Message-ID: <8907271826.AA19514@jade.berkeley.edu> Date: 27 Jul 89 15:38:09 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 39 >In article <8907251409.AA17215@jade.berkeley.edu> Forth Interest Group > International List writes: > >>b) Chuck tends to push a new radical idea every few months or so. [...] >> 2) Typing on a 5-finger keyboard, where you just type in the binary >> value for the ASCII keyboard (the high bits are "sticky" somehow). > >I saw him type with this. There were two additional "keys" (actually >Microswitches), one for the left side of the palm and one for the right side. >This gave him complete ASCII keyboard. Personally, I thought the whole thing >was embarassing -- obviously much slower and more confusing than a standard >keyboard. This sort of thing doesn't help his credibility or the credibility >of Forth. (I won't dispute his genius, just that he does seem to have more >than his share of harebrained ideas!) > >Tom Almy >toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com >Standard Disclaimers Apply I saw the famous 7 microswitch keyboard when Chuck came to give a talk at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center several years back. He had a Novix 4000 chip on a 4"x4" circuit board with a half-height 5 1/4" floppy and a 5" monochrome monitor. The whole thing was perhaps 6"x6"x6" -- maybe smaller. It plugged into the cigarette lighter of his car. He used the microswitch keyboard because it required only one hand, so he could drive and write code at the same time. I get nervous when I see people driving and talking on their cellular phones at the same time, but that takes the cake! Perhaps typing in ASCII codes from memory is slower and more confusing for the general computing populace, but you must remember that Chuck comes from the time when computer programmers debugged programs by reading core dumps and disassembling the hex codes in their heads. I seriously doubt that working a 7-switch keyboard was much of a stretch for him. -- Lee Brotzman (FIGI-L Moderator) -- BITNET: ZMLEB@SCFVM -- Internet: zmleb@scfvm.gsfc.nasa.gov -- The government and my company don't know what I'm saying. -- Let's keep it that way.