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From: jfarrell@sun.uucp (Jerry Farrell)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: long names and hardware...
Message-ID: <370@sun.uucp>
Date: Tue, 6-Dec-83 20:39:55 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.370
Posted: Tue Dec  6 20:39:55 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Dec-83 02:24:58 EST
References: <6196@watmath.UUCP>, <507@dciem.UUCP>, <1490@utcsstat.UUCP> <410@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 19

[I removed the address to net.nlang because I'm fairly sure we've
exhausted whatever interest that group had in this discussion.]

Andy Cohill asks whether "... Xerox ever did any research to indicate that
windows improve human performance?????" after noting the benefits of
(more-or-less) compatible ASCII terminals.  The question is a little
confused, since windows have been around on ASCII terminals for quite a
few years;  I think what he's referring to is more bit-mapped displays,
pop-up menus, and mouse interfaces.  The answer, to the best of my
knowledge, is no, except for the well-known superiority of mice over
most other positioning devices.  It might be an interesting
undergraduate psych experiment.  There is the evolutionary evidence,
that no programmer who had access to an Alto or beyond built a keyboard-
oriented interface for a game or personal hack....  Playing Missile
Command with a mouse is a vast improvement over a trackball, not to
mention over 10X TREK.

jf