Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!vd09+ From: vd09+@andrew.cmu.edu (Vincent M. Del Vecchio) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system Subject: Re: The Mouse -- What is its History? Message-ID: Date: 14 Oct 90 00:50:42 GMT References: <21056@dime.cs.umass.edu> <1123@helens.Stanford.EDU> , <1478@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 25 In-Reply-To: <1478@svin02.info.win.tue.nl> The mouse on the mac is so much a part of the user interface that changing the mouse (say, by giving it three buttons) definitely changes the interface. To say that > A three button mouse could be put on the Mac > without any problem, and without changing the user interface at all. is ridiculous. The only way that you could even come close to keeping the interface the same would be to have all three buttons do the same thing... and then what's the point of a three button mouse? If you make the three buttons do different things, there are users out there who, coming from a one-button Mac that they never became very confident with, will jump if they accidentally click on the wrong button and a menu pops up in the middle of a window. Personally, I manage just fine with the Mac's one button mouse--and I use X on a unix box about as much as I use my Mac. I've gotten used to the 3-button X mouse, but I don't see any loss of functionality or speed with the Mac. The only reason I might want a three button mouse for my Mac would be to run X with it... +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Vincent Del Vecchio \ #include | | Box 4834 \ #include | | 5125 Margaret Morrison St.\ BITNET: vd09+%andrew@cmuccvma.bitnet | | Pittsburgh, PA 15213 \ UUCP: harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!vd09 | | (412) 268-4441 \ Internet: vd09+@andrew.cmu.edu | +-------------------------------------------------------------------+