Graphics is different. There, the cursor keys are more cumbersome.
One artist, however, wanted not a mouse but an electronic “pad and a stylus”; he might be happy with a digitizing tablet—also known as a graphics tablet—like the well-known KoalaPad. You can write on this surface with a stylus or your finger and the computer will display the lines on its screen.
A touch-sensitive screen is still another possibility—for some people—both in word processing and graphics. You point your finger at a spot on the screen. Bingo! You can start moving a paragraph or perform graphics magic. But touch typists may face the same problem as with the mouse—wasted motion—and some people may tire of reaching up to the screen again and again. Also, touch-sensitive screens may not be precise enough for you to pick out just one number or letter.
Hugh Hunt raised an interesting issue.
“What happens if a fly lands on the Hewlett-Packard screen?” he asked someone about a computer with a touch screen.
Well, I hear, the HP 150’s screen uses infrared touch sensors that are more than fly length from the glass. “Debugging” the 150, Hewlett-Packard must have thought of everything.
Yet other pointing devices are:
● The joystick. Moving the stick around, you move the cursor. A neat idea. But it’s more fit for video games than word processing and many other business programs—you just can’t point exactly.
● The trackball. You move the cursor by rotating a ball inside an enclosure. Want the cursor to go faster? Then rotate the ball more energetically. The trackball is found most often in arcade-style systems[systems]. It’s great for chasing aliens and may have uses in spreadsheets and data-base management, but some people say it’s an abomination for word processing.
● The light pen, with which you could electronically “draw” on the screen. Draw? Okay. Write? Well, it’s “wasted motion” time again here, as with the other items on this list.