[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[Era Scarecrow]

> > Heh, yea. That's something thing I always found funny:
> Apple always used to
> > prepackage one-button mice with their
> right-click-capable OSX machines
> > because "one-button mice are simpler and easier". But I
> never understood how
> > "control-click" qualified as simpler or easier than
> "right-click".
> <snip>
> 
> A one-button mouse _is_ simpler than a mouse with three
> buttons and a scroll wheel.
> 
> OTOH, _using_ a one-button mouse is neither simpler nor
> easier....
> 
> (The IT manager of my uni department back in the day told me
> (probably speculatively) that 
> the reason for fewer buttons is "less to go wrong".)

 Let's see... I don't have a math degree, but how many keys are there on a keyboard? With a 2 button mouse, you have up to 4 combinations you can work with. If you include double click, that does up to 9, include a scroll wheel click, that's 27.

 Now instead of using one hand and two fingers (index and ring), you instead have to use one hand, with one button, the other hand, and you have to probably drop your eyes to find the key. So with a single mouse, and you have click and double click, plus a 101 key keyboard, you have 202 combinations, all of which require two hands. Amputee? Get a PC... (now there's an ad slogan :P)

 Also reminds me something I never understood. The apple machines required you to have a keyboard plugged into turn on the computer, because the power button was on the keyboard..... Who the hell made that genius decision? I mean if it was something like, oh the Atari 800XL, or Commodore 64, that goes hand in hand as you COULDN'T remove the keyboard (which was the computer) but geez.... Really...