Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: the Trackman botch (Re: Left Handed programmers)
Summary: hostile designs
Message-ID: <1990Aug21.001217.28123@ico.isc.com>
Date: 21 Aug 90 00:12:17 GMT
References: <10401@stiatl.UUCP> <1990Aug16.080332.1572@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk> <1488@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 31

chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
> ...I'm tired of bozo programs which expect
> you to have a right hand on a mouse and a left hand on the keyboard...

And now is about right for a brief-but-intense flame against Logitech's
"Trackman".  Somebody finally figured out how to make a pointing device
that really works.  It doesn't need a clean desk to be able to wander
around; it just sits there.  Unlike other trackball devices, they figured
out that there are uses where you have to be able to hold one or more but-
tons down while you move the pointer, which is at least clumsy with most
other devices and a two-handed or impossible operation with others.  It's
a great idea, but...

THE DAMNED THING IS F* RIGHT-HANDED--ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY, AND UNALTER-
ABLY!!  There is NO useful way to set it up for a left-handed person.  I
can't imagine how anyone smart enough to design a device which is so
natural for the right hand could blow it so completely for left-handers!
It would have taken at most a modest design effort to do a "refrigerator
door" trick--e.g., make some parts movable so you could unscrew them, swap,
and put them back to move the buttons to the other side--but no.  You'd
think a company whose products rely so much on "ergonomics" wouldn't have
screwed up like this.

Anyone have any inside info on how they blew this so badly?  Doesn't
Logitech have anyone left-handed in the company?  Now, it's not a fraud
like the Fiskars "left-handed scissors" which are really just left-handed
handles on right-handed scissors (a lose-lose combination), but it's enough
of a botch that I'd like to know how it happened.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Are you making this up as you go along?