Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!dmark
From: dmark@cs.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor (airplane throttles)
Message-ID: <3503@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 89 19:35:30 GMT
References: <10746@s.ms.uky.edu> <5212@whuts.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Geography
Lines: 33

In article <5212@whuts.ATT.COM> spf@whuts.ATT.COM (Steve Frysinger of Blue Feather Farm) writes:

[most of his posting deleted]

>but think, for a moment, about how weird the concept of a steering
>wheel is.  Why does the car go in the direction of the TOP
>of the wheel and not the BOTTOM?  Hmmmm.

Think of a circular platform under (supporting) the front of the car.  Think
of a single front wheel attached to the underside of that platform. Project 
the image of the steering wheel onto the image of the platform (there is a
pretty good correspondence between the two ellipses).  To turn right,
you "know" that you must rotate the platform clockwise (looking down);
that matches turning the wheel clockwise (looking forward).  That is
my account of why the steering wheel "works".

Now if we were trying to steer a vehicle which was somehow attached to
the ceiling...  Hmmmm.

Incidentally, in Australia the turn-signal is to the RIGHT of the steering 
wheel, and the windshield-wiper-control on the LEFT (reverse from NAm).
I found that it took a LONG time to get used to this!  But, to turn
right, you still move the signal arm clockwise (but DOWNWARD in this case).
And that did NOT seem to cause me a problem.  And the wipers work in
the up=on convention (I seem to recall).  So, I think that they kept
the clockwise=right (the wheel works that way down there!) convention
for turn-signals, and the up=on convention for wipers, and those remained
"automatic" for me.  But, flipping the turn-signal to my right hand
and the wipers to the left caused me problems.  (But I did relearn it
well enough (after 11 weeks, driving daily the last 3) to have similar 
relearning problems when I got back!)

dmark@cs.buffalo.edu