[20785] in Hotline Meeting
workstation hardware
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ankleand@mtl.mit.edu)
Tue Jan 25 22:01:37 1994
Reply-To: ankleand@mtl.mit.edu
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 22:01:28 -0500
From: ankleand@mtl.mit.edu
To: hotline@MIT.EDU
i just wanted to comment on posters that i see in athena terminal
rooms regarding workstation hardware, namely keyboards and mice, being
corrupted by food. it seems to me that many people are *EXTREMELY ABUSE*
keyboards and mice because of games (xpilot, etc). i'm in the bldg 37
terminal room and there is this guy who has been clicking away at his
mouse at about 1Hz to 2Hz for the last few hours. every few minutes,
he *POUNDS* the keyboard like there is no tommorrow! it's not really
the frequency of action that matters as much as the *FORCE* that these
people use.
if you want my opinion, i think people should have a quota for playing
games just like there is a quota for printing. give a certain amount
for free and then charge on a per hour basis or something. look, the
keyboards and mice don't come cheap so someone has to pay for this
*LUXURY* of killing the hardware as if it were some kind of arcade
grade machine or something. now, i have not investigated the actual
cause of failure as mentioned in your posters. i can believe that
food could accelerate the destruction process. however, the manner in
which people are using this hardware cannot be ignored.
cheers.
Andrew Karanicolas
MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratory
ankleand@mtl.mit.edu
