Re: [NTLK] Not really Re: Platform crap...

From: Bill Davis (newton_at_ecity.net)
Date: Fri Nov 09 2001 - 00:21:46 EST


>
>I can verify this. The keyboard for my original 128K Mac (I just looked
>in the basement, honest...) does not have arrow keys. Neither does the
>keyboard for my Lisa, as a matter of fact... although at least it has a
>separate numeric keypad.

Mine too,

Actually, as I recall, you could use the keys on the numeric keypad (a
separate add-on) on the 128k Mac as arrow keys in apps like Multiplan
(the Microsoft spreadsheet for the Mac that evolved into Excel) and
MacTerminal. Sort of like the numlock on the original IBM PC keyboard
(which, as I recall, did not have SEPARATE arrow keys either; you had to
use the numlock business that still redundantly and annoyingly exists to
this day for no reasonable reason I can discover.)

Don't have a Lisa, though, but I'll bet LisaCalc did let you use some of
the number pad keys as if they were arrow keys. I think I recall there
being little arrow triangles on some of the number pad keys, but it's
been 10 or more years since I saw a Lisa.

And the keyboard that came out with (I think) the Mac Plus DID have arrow
keys. Very similar in layout to the Newton keyboard [<--- obligatory
Newton reference] plus it also had a built-in number pad.

The current standard desktop keyboard layout got it's start on the DEC
VT-100 terminal, was slightly modified for the IBM PC/AT and was pretty
much universally adopted by everyone from about 1986 or 1987 on for
desktop systems (Apple keyboards on desktop systems from the SE and Mac
II were in that style.) I even bought a "AT" style keyboard (as they
used to be known) from DataDesk for my MacPlus upgraded 128K. With arrow
keys. Worked just fine. Still have it.

As others here have noted, that Apple's research indicated that arrow
keys were a waste on a GUI machine and they dropped them, but folks
needed them to connect the Mac to systems that DID require them, so they
put them back as separate keys later and also allowed them via the number
pad even on the original 128k Mac.

Ed's comment about Apple's forcing you to do things a certain way even to
not supporting keyboards with arrow keys is his normal anti-Apple
conspiracy theory baloney. We've heard it from him many times before.
He's quite simply wrong. Ignore him.

Apple is one of the few brave companies to PIONEER things that improve
the user experience; everyone here should know that - -they use Newtons,
after all!

Apple is ALL ABOUT the user's experience. Sometimes that requires you to
drop one thing to encourage swifter adoption of a new tech or to make a
better, easier to use system. Sometimes that's painful if you have
legacy hardware or a fixed mindset. Microsoft just steals it after Apple
or others pioneers it and proves it better, and then claims they
"innovated" it. An awful similar word to "invented", isn't it?

And before someone calls me a Microsoft conspiracy theorist.....the
courts have proven MY statement to be correct, on rule of evidence! But
all Mac owners already knew this. We've seen it happening and screamed
about it for years, and every one called us crazy or silly. Well,
despite the Bush administration's Republican big-busines bias causing
them to wimp out on the penalties, they CAN'T get rid of the fact that
the court has, once and for all, PROVEN that they used illegal
monopolistic practices to force their competitors out of business and
obtain monopolistic powers.

Consider THAT too when you make a Wintel purchase. Talk about removing
freedom of choice, Ed!!!

 - Bill

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