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Aucbvax.2277 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Tue Jul 14 13:06:29 1981 Touchpanels >From SAUNDERS@USC-ISIB Tue Jul 14 12:58:01 1981 Why do all the answers in the digested replies on touchpanels share these glaring misconceptions?

- that a touchpanel must be mounted in front of the display; - that a touchpanel's resolution is limited to fingertip size.

1. Any of several touchpanel technologies, including the Elographics and Sierracin commercial units, is entirely suitable for use away from the display surface -- say, just where you would put a "tablet" (pen-on-a-wire type), but without ever having to find & pick up a pen or even find the mouse where you left it. The desk area used need not be larger than a mouse-field.

2. This same touchpanel technology, at least, offers resolution that is much much finer than the size of the touching fingertip -- I have personally built and used some, and with cursor feedback I can select individual pixel positions *within* the (projected) area of my contact "fingerprint". This is done simply and naturally (noone has to be coached) by rolling the fingertip. The resistive material reads out the centroid (in some sense) of the contact patch, allowing very sensitive control for fine positioning, as well as instantaneous pointing without having to find the pointer (pen or mouse) first.

*Of course* there is a tracking cursor on the display, just like a mouse/tablet. To assume absence of this well-understood software device gives extremely unfair comparisons.

Now that we all have that straight, how about some reconsidered answers? Preferably this time from users of real touchpanels, not those low-resolution or screen-mounted special-purpose devices that were blasted (rightly) in the recent batch of replies.

Steve

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