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Comment by rckrd | Hacker News Reader

I've always been confused as to the success of the computer mouse. It doesn't seem like the ideal solution. Then again, neither do trackpads.

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> I've always been confused as to the success of the computer mouse. It doesn't seem like the ideal solution. Then again, neither do trackpads.

Without meaning to be argumentative, what would be ideal? In the absence of an actual better solution, one can explain the success of an obviously sub-optimal but existing solution by "worse is better" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better).

Things that would appear ideal would be something like either a Light Pen or a Touch screen. Mainly because they'd appear ideal since that's how we interacted with things before computers, so it should enable us to work with computers the same way that we interact with things of the past 5k years or so. that said it's just appearances.

Touch screens where tried and rejected by the military early on because people hands would get tired after a very short time interacting with a vertically mounted touch screen. Horizontal touch screens have other usability challenges.

Plus, they get dirty, and resolution is much worse - try to make pixel-resolution actions with touch, it's practically impossible. With the mouse, much easier. And, replacing a cheap mouse is much better than replacing an expensive high-resolution screen.

I don't know much about light pens, but it seems from the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen that they are primarily intended for use with CRT monitors, which limits their utility nowadays.

Touch screens are obviously very much modern devices, and, though they're far from ideal as the only input device, I can buy that, when used in conjunction with a keyboard, they are a good replacement for a mouse or trackpad; but don't they suck up power in a way that mice and trackpads don't?

Yea light pens were originally a way to add something like a touch screen to CRTs way back in the "old days" long before alternative displays were feasible let alone better. As far as touch screens using power, they don't as I've known, or at least they don't have too. the same tech that makes up touchpads is usable to make touch screens (and in fact it is on your smartphone and tablet). That may not have been true back with the resistive touch sensors such as those on the palm pilot and such.

I've heard that touch screens are becoming pretty popular.

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