Xref: utzoo comp.windows.misc:842 comp.sys.mac:24451 alt.cyberpunk:1209
Path: utzoo!hoptoad!pacbell!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!texsun!killer!texbell!nuchat!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.mac,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <3166@sugar.uu.net>
Date: 28 Dec 88 16:07:43 GMT
References: <454@blake.acs.washington.edu> <17939@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <15063@genrad.UUCP>
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston, TX
Lines: 26

In article <15063@genrad.UUCP>, daf@genrad.com (David A. Fagan) writes:
> Keyboards with fiber-optically lit keytops are something that I've been
> thinking about for a while.

Honeywell makes keycaps with LCD arrays in them. The War Toys bunch use them
in tanks and fighters and other big toys that make holes. (my, aren't we
cynical this morning).

This subject first came up some months ago in comp.society.futures, by the
way. I posted a great big article about my fantasies of a virtual reality
using the equivalent of the NASA VIVED virtual environment helmet. If you
used a helmet with LCDs and some clever optics in it you could switch your
attention between the virtual world and the real one just by changing your
focus (you can see through LCD displays). You'd need enormous resolution to
be able to read text at a resonable virtual distance, but that's just an
implementation detail.

Combine it with the Dataglove and an accelerometer, and you could do away
with screens, keyboards, and everything. It could "put" virtual paper on
your real desktop. You could type with the datagloves. Grab a peice of VP
with your real fingers and just place it in space somewhere handy.

Just be careful the metaphor doesn't get out of control.
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva  `-_-'  Hackercorp.
...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.uu.net      'U`