Revolution Book

Ken Norris (dialup) pixelbird at interisland.net
Mon Apr 8 13:43:01 EDT 2002


on 4/8/02 8:30 AM, Judy Perry at jperryl at ecs.fullerton.edu wrote:

> Interestingly enough, there was a study on this very issue that used a
> Hypercard stack called HyperHolmes.  The general findings were that while
> the mechanics of searching and retrieving information are faster when done
> by a machine rather than by a human, humans still prefer to read books
> because:
> 
> *we read faster from printed material than online.
> --> screen refresh rates, resolution, glare, ...
> 
> *we already know _how_ to use books.
> --> do I look for the "help" menu?  Click here?  Click there?
> 
> *No easy conversion of user habits from books to online info:
> --> dogearing of pages, scribbling in margins, hiliting of text...
> 
> *Convenience.
> --> can read in bed, on the bus/plane/train, ...
----------
You can also add to the list:

*You always get two pages of info at once without having to 'push buttons'
or 'scroll'. 

*The _only_ truly viable replacement for a book is a notebook computer which
still has to be run on batteries or plugged into a wall socket.

*I never heard of anyone getting 'Carpal Tunnel Syndrome' from turning book
pages (although brother friars were being murdered by poison on page corners
in the Sean Connery film 'The Name of the Rose'), as opposed to using a
mouse. 

I'm sure there's more...

Anyway, FYI, I am still looking for parts, but I expect to end up with a Mac
IIci with: Accelerator card, high res video, 128mb memory, 9.1.gb drive (4
2gb partitions, the rest for VRAM). I intend to use it as a dedicated
reference machine.

I'm thinking about a Newton or Palm with ref materials on flash cards, too.

Best regards,
Ken N.




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