[rollei_list] OT: Mac Mouse Buttons WAS: ADMIN: Clipping Messages
- From: Aaron Reece <oboeaaron@xxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:11:40 -0400
On Oct 13, 2005, at 5:02 PM, Don Williams wrote:
If the MAC-Apple system has only one mouse button, it sort of
suggests that they haven't made much improvement since it was
stolen in the olden days from Xerox/PARC by both Microsoft and Apple.
Apple traded one megabuck worth of stock to Xerox in exchange for
access to the work being done at PARC. It was in no sense "stolen."
In fact, Xerox's investment gained in value eighteen-fold within a
year. Besides which, the basic ideas for mice and GUIs had been
floating around in academia since the Sixties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
History_of_Apple_Computer#Apple_III_and_Lisa
One good thing I can say about Apple, their "X" series of operating
systems run on top of SCO Unix, which is very stable.
Mac OS X, like its ancestor NEXTSTEP, is based on the Mach
microkernel, but features a UNIX compatibility layer based on
FreeBSD, a branch of the Berkeley Software Distribution. It has
nothing to do with SCO, which is the company recently involved in a
transparent pump-and-dump scheme which involved making spurious
claims to the intellectual property contained in the Linux kernel and
suing IBM for billions.
Finally, Mac users rarely feel the need for more than the single
mouse button due to Apple assiduously promulgating their Human
Interface Guidelines to software developers, one tenet of which is
that any functionality a program provides should be accessible from
the standard menus, obviating the need for the second (or third)
mouse button. Anyone who has spent time doing tech support,
professional of familial, over the telephone will immediately
understand why this is a good idea. "Power users" who desire to
access contextual menus a la Windows can use a third-party mouse or
simply hold down the control key while clicking with the single
button, although this is merely a convenience and rarely necessary.
Best regards,
Aaron
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