> In response to Gregg Williams' editorial ("The New Generation of Human- Engineered Software," April, p. 6), the mouse of Lisa, Visi On, and their predecessor, the Xerox Star, is a truly fascinating hardware device, and on those few occasions that I have seen these devices in use, I have been impressed. But the mouse is not revolutionary, and, as its name suggests, it is really nothing more than a rodent. Its functional predecessor was the light pen. Some years ago, light pens were fashionable devices for selecting a particular function, and they are still in use. But displays attaching light pens had to have an appropriate phosphor, and they were not as easy to program as function keys. About the same time, touch- sensitive screens were introduced, and they are still used in applications such as online catalogs in libraries; here, too, however, programming appears to be the chief stumbling block.
> If the name of the game is "ease of use," the industry would be far wiser to develop touch-sensitive displays than mice. Because a display has no moving parts, it is likely to prove more durable than a mouse. And a finger placed on a display screen does not require additional desk space, as a mouse does. If an executive were having an office conference, don't you think he might rather touch his screen a couple of times than roll a mouse around his desk pressing buttons on it?
> There are, obviously, many considerations at work in the development of new products. My bet, simply stated, is that the mouse is not a viable product. At best, it will limp along like bubble memory. - John P. Rash, President, Acorn Data Ltd.
There's also:
- Several refutations to a previous letter which claimed CRT monitors are a radiation hazard
- An engineer from Intel responding to criticisms of their FORTRAN compiler with "those issues have been fixed in the latest version"
- Debate over structured programming and strong typing
- Debate on what "computer literacy" means and whether the general population needs it (including a claim that WYSYWIG editors and desktop file managers do not make computers easier to use because "a desktop manager is only a sophisticated analog for being able to copy one file into another")
- Conversations on software prices and piracy
- And, of course, someone pointing out a typo in an article.