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Computer mouse co-inventor William English dies at 91:
One of the pioneers of the modern computer interface has passed away: the New York Times reports that William "Bill" English died on July 26th from respiratory failure at the age of 91. Alongside Douglas Englebart at the Stanford Research Institute, English helped develop the first computer mouse and put together a 1968 "Mother of All Demos" that outlined many concepts that would come to PCs over the decades, such as graphical user interfaces, online text editing, video calls and hypertext links.
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Computer Mouse Co-inventor William English Dies at 91
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momentum, n.:
What you give a person when they are going away.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:48AM (3 children)
I want to note the text. All caps, no lower case. Don't know what that font is, but it definitely brings back memories from my Navy days. A lot of equipment simply had no provision for upper and lower case, so everything was upper case.
If I could reproduce that font, I'd probably drive a lot of people bugshit with it. ;^)
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday August 04 2020, @08:00AM
Give us a theme/skin for SN? :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @03:22PM (1 child)
UPPER CASE NO PUNCTUATION STOP WRITE LIKE A BOSS STOP
(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday August 04 2020, @06:18PM
THAT WAS BEFORE LOWERCASE HAD BEEN INVENTED.
now people rite in lowercase with mispelleed wurds no punctuation and no coherent thought process about whether the alphabet has mixed case letters and what purpose they might serve but bosses can be expecially bad at this but not just bosses other coworkers can write in all lowercase run on sentences that mirrors the torrent of illogic that comes out of their mouths when they're not typing with two fingers
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 04 2020, @06:14PM (1 child)
Boomer says: That was back when REAL mice had balls!
Millennial says: If you look at 32:00, you see that mouse had two wheels, and no balls!
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2020, @07:24PM
Boomer engineer says: the ball was a convenient way to transfer motion up to two axles that spun encoder wheels. So even mice with a ball, still had "two wheels", just hidden inside. Because of the size ratio (gear ratio) between ball and axles, the encoders spun faster than the ball. In turn this meant that the encoder wheels could have fewer&larger slots so the optical detectors weren't so critical.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday August 05 2020, @04:46AM (7 children)
With no disrespect to the person, computer mice suck; trackballs are objectively superior. They allow more precision both for small movements and large movements, require less space, (compared to optical mice) do not require a distinct surface pattern, or a particularly level surface, and are generally more ergonomic as trackballs do not encourage damaging wrist posture and motions as most mice do (although of course ergonomics depends on the person and other factors).
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:30AM (6 children)
I don't think you can play soon very well with the trackball and this explains a lot.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 05 2020, @11:34AM (1 child)
>play soon
Lol I wrote DOOM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:45PM
So autocorrect changed from UPPERCASE to lowercase? Haven't seen any of the correction nannies do that (except for the first letter on proper nouns).
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday August 05 2020, @07:03PM (3 children)
Explains what? Real Doom players only use the keyboard anyway, and trackballs work at least as well as mice for games like FPSes and RTSes if not better (you can't do a 1440 degree noscope with a mouse unless you crank up DPI unusually high or have an unusually wide desk).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2020, @08:04PM (1 child)
Track balls are better when they are larger. Here's an early one at 4.5 inches (114mm),
https://www.castleclassicarcade.com/archives/restored-atari-1978-football-xo [castleclassicarcade.com]
Longer story, explains that size was from standard candlepin (Canadian bowling)
https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/07/29/the-secret-history-of-the-arcade-trackball/ [arcadeblogger.com]
Not mentioned is that the track ball application required a ball that was more accurately spherical than for candlepin (or billiards for smaller size balls), so the manufacturer had to tighten tolerances.
But the best one was prototyped at Atari Coin-Op (arcade games). It used a full sized bowling ball (8.5") and was designed to be operated by foot for a game that never made production. Organists that use a foot-pedal keyboard could have cleaned up on that game. Sorry my google-fu didn't turn up a pic, but I did try it out personally, it was built in hardware.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:46PM
Missile command had a trackball. It's a pity many of you didn't live the arcades of 1979-84. Best place ever, together with disco clubs 197x-89 if you eliminated cigarette smoke which was a problem when you danced 22:00-03:30 indoor. I'd give the internet up to see contemporary youngsters having that kind of fun, really.
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(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 05 2020, @09:41PM
I find your reply very interesting. I assumed hardcore players would have explored playing with trackball instead of mice if the former were better. Guess I must order one and try out for myself.
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