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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!gumby
From: gumby@mit-eddie.UUCP (David Vinayak Wallace)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Typewriters as models
Message-ID: <986@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Dec-83 02:15:00 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.986
Posted: Thu Dec  1 02:15:00 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Dec-83 05:55:20 EST
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 33

In-reply-to: The message of 30 Nov 83 00:26-EST from Steven M. Haflich <smh at mit-eddie.UUCP>
    Date: Wed, 30-Nov-83 00:26:23 EST
    From: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich)

	    What wonders me in this discussion (though I appreciate the replies
	    that suggest to read everything is CBREAK mode), is that no one
	    came up with the answer `suggest a TYPEWRITER as model'.  Surely
	    this kind of apparatus and its use are known to most people, and
	    surely on a typewriter you have to watch out for the end of the line!

    I admire this cogent and meritorious suggestion, yet I find it
    unsettling:  I can't remember the last time I actually *used* a real
    paper-and-platen typewriter!  I cannot count the nearby Diablo which we
    use for "letter-quality" output, as no human ever uses its keyboard.  I
    imagine there are children who have logged many hours on a glass tty but
    who have *never* used a real typewriter!  The increasing-common feature
    of automatic break at end-of-line might render this suggestion
    absolutely opaque.

    So why does it bother me?

Well, this model would be useless to me.  My first exposure to a
keyboard (of a non-musical instrument) was a Linolex word processor in
1972.  It had a diablo printer, crt, cassette tapes (no floppies, then).
I leaned to type on that machine!

A couple of years later I saw my first non-selectric printer, and
exclaimed to my dad "Look! The PLATEN moves and the carriage is fixed!"

As a matter of fact, I can count the times I've used a typewriter one my
fingers.  I've always used computers to type on.

david wallace
(19 years old now)