69 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
69 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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NEW TECHNOLOGY ANNOUNCEMENT FROM APPLE
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In a surprise announcement yesterday, Apple Computer said that is is
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finally doing away with the keyboard. Apple stated that the
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microcomputer user has suffered too long with this awkward and
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inefficient input device. According to an Apple spokesperson, the
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technology for replacing the keyboard with only a mouse is here and the
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computer user is ready for it. The spokesperson said that Apple has
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received a steady stream of complaints over the years about the need to
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constantly move the hands between the Mac keyboard and the mouse. "The
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solution was obvious - do away with the keyboard completely."
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Acknowledging that there are still a few Mac applications that depend on
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textual input in addition to graphical manipulation, Apple said the poor
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people stuck with such outdated technology have not been forgotten.
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They are introducing the Spinning Alphabet Wheel (SAW) to replace the
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keyboard. The SAW is a screen display object consisting of concentric
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circular strips showing all of the characters which normally appear on
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the keyboard. The wheel rotates continuously under character selector
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windows. The user selects a character by placing the mouse pointer in
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the appropriate window at the same time as the desired character is
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about to appear. "...and, ta-da, the selected character appears on the
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screen just as though it had been typed on an old fashioned keyboard."
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"This is a marvelous new technology with plenty of room for growth,"
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said the spokesperson. For example, the user can configure separate
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wheels for vowels vs. consonants. Or digits can be placed on their own
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special low speed wheel. "We have conceptualized the keyboard as a big,
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bulky menu selection device and replaced it with dynamic display menus
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instead. Apple will eventually replace all menus with their new
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Rotating Wheel Technology (RWT)."
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When asked why the wheels have to rotate, the spokesperson said that
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Apple's engineers had considered using conventional "point-and-click"
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technology for the wheel. "However, we feel that this type of operation
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is too complicated for the typical Mac user. So, we have done away with
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the mouse button, too. It is still hard for us to believe that the IBM
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world has stepped backwards in technology by providing two or more
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buttons to confuse the user. The IBM compatible sector has not yet
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recognized that 95% of computer usage is devoted to experimenting with
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different fonts and character styles in documents."
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Asked if this new technology would reduce the price of the typical Mac
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computer, the spokesperson countered that it would probably increase the
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price of the Mac. "After all, display space is already scarce on the
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current screen. We will now deliver Macs with two screens - one for the
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normal display and a larger one for the multitude of rotating wheels the
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user needs to access." Apple said that the user who is confused by
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complicated devices such as keyboards and mouse buttons will gladly pay
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a premium to avoid them. "In fact, the easily-confused user is our best
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customer," replied the spokesperson. "Not only are we doing away with
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the pesky keyboard, but we are also giving them something they have
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demanded for a long time - more screen space. this is definitely a
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win-win situation."
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Beta testers of the new technology were impressed by its ease of use,
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but said there are still some minor problems to work out. for example,
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one tester left his machine unattended with the uppercase character
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wheel spinning at medium speed. While he was away somebody must have
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jarred his desk, moving the mouse pointer into the selector window.
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When he got back he found that his Word document now had one huge
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paragraph consisting of all of the characters of the uppercase alphabet
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repeated 2,539,987 times. "At first glance, this appeared to be a big
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problem. But after I formated the new paragraph with 33 different fonts
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and 11 different type styles, it looked great. I hope that Apple fixes
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this problem before they release it, because these accidents can greatly
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increase the time spent formatting documents."
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