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From: sanders@parc.xerox.com (Rex Sanders)
Newsgroups: comp.human-factors
Subject: Re: Track ball on a keyboard?
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.210119.14264@parc.xerox.com>
Date: 14 Jun 91 21:01:19 GMT
Article-I.D.: parc.1991Jun14.210119.14264
Sender: news@parc.xerox.com
Organization: Xerox PARC
Lines: 14

Now that we've seen dozens of messages on the "superiority" of mice/trackballs/
isopoints/whatever, does anyone see a pattern?

Different people like different input devices.  I suspect that "best" for
a large population will be like taking the mean of a multi-modal distribution -
a nice, handy, meaningless number.

If *you* are designing a system that needs a pointing device, pick something
(almost anything :-), but allow users to attach their favorite device through
a well-specified interface - serial port, ADB, HIL, ...  Gosh, you could even
offer *options* to users - what a radical concept!

-- Rex
   sanders@parc.xerox.com