Re: X

[cgwilson redjack ninds nih gov (Christopher G. Wilson)]

Hi again,
 
> correct, of course.  it would be a serious mistake to ignore the work done at
> Xerox PARC' in the late '60.  it truly was the forerunner of all gui-type
> stuff and Apple and others did indeed borrow much from their work.

Right, I deliberately didn't mention Doug Engelbart's (sp.?) work, but that
was clearly the precursor to everything that we call GUI today.  It seemed
to be a little bit off topic since I was trying to address the commonality
of Win/MacOS/Motif rather than the distant origins.  To my recollection, it
wasn't until the late 70's and early 80's that we had things like filecabinet
icons and folders and such like.  Engelbart's interface was multi-paned with
selectable commands but they were displayed in text, much like Wirth's Oberon
interface from much, much later... 
 
> i remember seeing an early system at Xerox PARC in 1968 that among other
> things was the first use of a mouse that i had seen.

Yep, the mouse is from the 60's, once again Doug Engelbart was the pioneer in
this realm.  He had an interface that was not just the mouse but also some other
buttons either on the keyboard or another (left-handed) controller...  Someone
who knows this information to more detail should give us a hand here.
 
> there was much discussion by the folks there and in medical circles about the
> ill effects of using a mouse for long periods.  these concerns centered around
> the disconnect of seeing the pointer move around without seeing the hand
> move.  something about screwing up the kinesthesia sense, and not carpal
> tunnel syndrome or things like that.
> 
Hmmm, I vaguely remember something along those lines too but it has been a 
long time.  I would wager that if anything, running a mouse/trackball/keyboard
enhances proprioceptive abilities.  I haven't seen anything regarding some kind
of cognitive dissonance after using a mouse.  The same basic pathways are 
in use with a pointer or some other extension of the hand.  We seem to be wired
for that sort of thing.

Chris
-------------------------------------------------------------
Christopher G. Wilson, Ph.D. (cgwilson redjack ninds nih gov)
Lab of Neural Control, NIH-NINDS
Bldg. 49, Rm. 3A50, Bethesda, MD. 20892-4455
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