Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!rodan.acs.syr.edu!wwtaroli From: wwtaroli@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Bill Taroli) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: New Mac Keyboard Message-ID: <1990Oct29.063631.28724@rodan.acs.syr.edu> Date: 29 Oct 90 06:36:31 GMT References: <4694@sage.cc.purdue.edu> <1590@camex.COM> Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY Lines: 39 In article <1590@camex.COM> kent@camex.com (Kent Borg) writes: >Question: If you are selling Macintoshes and want them to be >approachable, easy to use machines, which group do you cater to? >Typists, of course. (Nothing in the Mac is done for programmers' >convienience, why should the keyboard???) Agreed. However, almost 90% of all the users I'm aquainted with (be they Mac users or not) are NOT typists and they are NOT programmers. They are computer users who have better things to do with their time than learn how to type or program. In fact, I think it has been noted on many occasions that there are proportionally fewer computer users that can touch-type than those who can. >Also remember that the Mac itself doesn't use the control key. There >were three different Macs before the first control key showed up on a >Macintosh keyboard from Apple. Control keys are mostly used by >communications programs, and only the old fashioned "glass tty" >monsters at that. More modern communications programs like America >Online, AppleLink, and MacNet never use the control keys. Perhaps the realization that Macs are not always used in Macintosh environments hit someone. I know that I routinely use my Mac to communicate with systems that do not involve my investment in yet another program. I find TTY (or VTxxx) communications a standard staple in all involvement with systems that we traditionally think of as computing powerhouses. So, until DEC, IBM, Sun, etc, etc, decide to support Mac-like interfaces across Async communicaton lines I will demand my TTY emulators! >Control keys should be as obsolete to computers as UPPERCASE >ONLY...maybe we should banish *both* keys. You must not use either traditional BBSes or large computer systems. In many instances, to properly use a remote system without a Control key would be like asking you to breathe without lungs. -- ******************************************************************************* * Bill Taroli (WWTAROLI@RODAN.acs.syr.edu) | "You can and must understand * * Syracuse University, Syracuse NY | computers NOW!" -- Ted Nelson * *******************************************************************************