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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!houem!dvorak
From: dvorak@houem.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng,btl.blit
Subject: Re: Chord Keyboards wanted
Message-ID: <166@houem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Sep-83 14:58:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: houem.166
Posted: Thu Sep  1 14:58:01 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Sep-83 12:56:55 EDT
References: <1890@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 24


While I worked for Xerox Research I saw hundreds of Altos--with their
mice, of course.  There was also available a chord keyboard for the
Alto, but NO ONE ever used them.  In fact, three years passed before I
knew they existed for use with the Alto because the keyboards were either
stuffed in the back of drawers or thrown away.

This observation is meant as a POTENTIAL indication of the relative
utility(or lack thereof) of chord keyboards vs. mice.  The important 
qualification is that the software available for use with the Altos
was very likely developed with the mouse in mind; however, I think it
is fair to say that the keyboard limitations drove this direction.
The advanced text editors, CAD packages, games and graphics tools 
that had the best features all used the mouse.

My opinion is that, for the overwhelming majority of applications,
the chord could at best complement the mouse, and
certainly not replace it.  Using both a mouse and a chord keyboard
effectively could be real tricky from a human factors point of view--
consider what happens with the BLIT when you move around the screen
from layer to layer: the button assignments change, etc.  Adding to
this great flexibility (and therefore potential complexity) the mental
"load" of a left-handed keyboard (with other assignments) might be a
little too much.