Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!haven!adm!cmcl2!lanl!opus!pfeiffer From: pfeiffer@nmsu.edu (Joe Pfeiffer) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Sony Palmtop w/char recognition - Ultimate Laptop? Message-ID: Date: 14 Apr 90 03:04:32 GMT References: <18720@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <1463@uvm-gen.UUCP> <19307@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <54020@microsoft.UUCP> <3223@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au> Sender: news@nmsu.edu Followup-To: comp.society.futures Organization: NMSU Computer Science Lines: 24 brendan@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony), in <3223@moondance.cs.uq.oz.au>: |If typing is so much more efficient why were there so few typists prior |to the "computer revolution". People use computers because being able |to "edit" what you write is more efficient than not being able to. |People use keyboards because that the only way to get to a computer. |Most of them never get much beyond pecking with two fingers. Sure it's |possible to type at 200 words a minute, but can you think at 200 words |a minute. For me and most I think a keyboard only gets in the way. It |fill up my desk and cramps my fingers. | |This handwriting interface is going to put keyboards back in the typing pool |where they belong. They make us learn to write in the second grade, whether we want to or not. Typing is an elective taken by geeks in high school, when it's much harder to imprint new paths in the brain. That's why there are so few competent typists. I type poorly, with all ten fingers (better than hunt and peck, but thank God for the delete key). I can type faster than I can write, and can read the result. It's easy for me to believe a better interface can exist, but I haven't seen it. Writing isn't it. -Joe.