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From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.mac,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <17939@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 24 Dec 88 21:29:41 GMT
References: <454@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 24

In article <454@blake.acs.washington.edu> phaedra@blake.acs.washington.edu (J. Anderson) writes:

>	3) A keyboard with LCD or similar technology key caps, so that
>not only What-I-See-Is-What-I-Get but What-Button-I-Push-Is-What-I-Get

       It's been done, by a number of vendors.  It's not all that useful,
as it turns out, because the user has to keep looking at the keypad to
see what the keys mean now.  It's hard to type ahead when the keys are
being remapped under you.  It doesn't take advantage of the ability of
humans to memorize standard object positions in the working environment
at a low level, the ability that makes keyboards, typewriter or musical,
work.

       Touch screens are an extension of this concept, but they have not
been popular except for public-access applications, and even there, they
do not dominate.  The HP 150, the "going nowhere fast" MS-DOS machine, offered
a touch screen.  But it didn't sell.

       Strange though it seems, you don't really want the visual output
area in the same place you put your hands.  Your hands get in the way.
This is why mice and tablets have replaced lightpens and touchscreens.
But it took years before this became clear.

					John Nagle