Re: [Way OT] Re: 20 years without semantic innovation is enough

Dancer (dancer@zeor.simegen.com)
Thu, 01 Jul 1999 11:08:09 +1000


Alexander Viro wrote:
>
> On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Jeff Merkey wrote:
>
> > So where's the neural interface engine for Linux so we don't need keyboards
> > or terminals? How about the telepathic mouse sensor? Perhaps one day, whe
> > these devices show up (due to someone's originality) I could invent a new
> > computer language that uses them. It will only have two commands, "set bugs
> > off" and "do what I'm thinking".
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Ouch... Please, don't. It *will* hurt. OTOH... it might be useful... "Your
> Honor, I didn't strangle him with the barbed wire when he drove the
> fork-lift into the the rack with routers, computer did!"

Commercial devices have been produced in the past with sensors (not
unlike an eeg) built into a headband. There've been hands-free mice,
keyboards, and joysticks..You may have seen the advertising for them in
computer magazines around 1981-1984-ish. The keyboard was almost
impossible to learn to use (but that was actually a strategic problem,
not a technological one. I know how to fix that). The mouse and joystick
conversions were quite good. Easy to learn to use (that is, about 2-3
days before you could get 'em to behave). I liked 'em so much I built
one myself once (a mouse - which I later sold to a disabled Mac user to
offset the disgusting (at the time) cost of off-the-shelf
high-sensitivity epidermal pickups). The spooky thing about these
gadgets is that there's a brief delay between you making a conscious
decision to take an action, and actually KNOWING that you've made the
decision (I mean being aware of it). It's eerie to have the mouse
double-click on an icon just as you become aware that that is what you
want to do.

For my money, a combined keyboard/mouse/joystick unit, with an IRDA link
in my top pocket, and voice-recognition can go jump in the lake. Who
needs it?

D

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