From: jwt!bbs-airwick@peora.sdc.ccur.com (Eric Van Hensbergen)
Subject: TECH: Text interfaces
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1992 15:21:37 GMT
Organization: The Matrix



Not to diminish any of the great discussions on graphics and hardware,
but I have a question to purpose.  In my own research and study of VR,
I have yet to come across proposals for "nice" text interfaces with
the environment.  That is to say, that even though primary interaction
with VR environments will be pointer related (tracking systsmes, mice,
joysticks, gloves, etc), there will undoubtably be the need for some
text input.  How does everone propose to accomodate for this in their
designs??

Certainly a nice text window system that overlays itself on the
environment would do the trick, but it seems to me that this would
play nasty tricks on both speed and on the shutter glasses.

Effectively, it would seem we would need to shut down the environment
(at least from the users' perspective) whenever he needed to give
input from the keyboard (I believe this is how REND386 handles text
i/o).  Is there any way around this????

(Of course there is always Gibson's method of unmarked keyboards and perfect
typists, but that would restrict alot of us from the VR interface. :)

-------------------------
Eric Van Hensbergen
airwick@nick.csh.rit.edu
VR Learning Systems Development
Computer Science House
Rochester Institute of Technology
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