From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Jul 14 05:49:39 1996 Return-Path: owner-chat Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id FAA28909 for chat-outgoing; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 05:49:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.crl.com (mail.crl.com [165.113.1.22]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id FAA28898 for ; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 05:49:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from diablo.ppp.de by mail.crl.com with SMTP id AA05577 (5.65c/IDA-1.5 for ); Sun, 14 Jul 1996 05:48:53 -0700 Received: from allegro.lemis.de by diablo.ppp.de with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0ufPse-000Qc7C; Sun, 14 Jul 96 14:02 MET DST From: grog@lemis.de (Greg Lehey) Organisation: LEMIS, Schellnhausen 2, 36325 Feldatal, Germany Phone: +49-6637-919123 Fax: +49-6637-919122 Received: (grog@localhost) by allegro.lemis.de (8.6.9/8.6.9) id NAA21827; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 13:48:40 +0200 Message-Id: <199607141148.NAA21827@allegro.lemis.de> Subject: Re: FreeBSD keyboard To: jfieber@indiana.edu (John Fieber) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 13:48:40 +0200 (MET DST) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD Chat) In-Reply-To: from "John Fieber" at Jul 13, 96 03:39:25 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk John Fieber writes: > > On Sat, 13 Jul 1996, J Wunsch wrote: > >> 'cause fewer and fewer people know how to use a keyboard. >> >> That's why kindergarten icon games like winloose have the reputation >> of being ``user-friendly''. > > It has nothing to do with typing ability. It has everything to > do with the basic fact that humans are far better at > recognition than recall. Recall may be more efficient, but only > comes after a great time investment in memorization. For > infrequent users, or infrequent tasks, recall will never be as > efficient as recognition. While I agree with this, I'm not sure it's relevant. > Unix systems trivialize recognition enabled interfaces, Windows, > and to a greater degree Mac, trivialize recall enabled > interfaces. A vast majority of the computing market has made it > pretty clear that if a compromise must be made, it will be in > favor of recognition. No doubt about that. However, we're looking at a different problem here. There's no conflict between a touch-typist's keyboard and a hunt-and-pecker's keyboard. The touch-typist looks for positions, the hunt-and-pecker looks for the keycaps (that's why they're reverting to ideograms like this Microsoft key for people who can't read). There's absolutely *no* reason to put a switch like CapsLock where it can be used in conjunction with other keys. Equally, there's absolutely *no* reason to put keys like the F keys where it's difficult to use them in conjunction with other keys. I believe even Microslop uses things like Alt-F4, don't they? How does a touch typist do that on one of these "ergonomic" keyboards? > It is important enough that people will put up with cheesy operating > systems that crash on a regular basis if that is the only way to get > it. People put up with Microslop because they're uneducated, not because it's the only way to get recognition-based user interfaces. I think the real problem we have at the moment is that the computer market is no longer technology-driven: it's market driven instead. Why did they change the keyboard layout to put the F keys up the top again? Some marketeer decided it would sell better that way. You can bet he can't type. BTW, what does this Microslop key do? Greg