Software vs. Hardware

[Søren Knudsen]

I've been thinking about these things lately after this discussion...

And I've considered if not, the greater advantage of using faders and buttons
instead of a mouse in daw environments is related to the fact that users in
such environments use many other machines/instruments besides the computer?

The reason I wonder is that as the mouse is a relative positioning tool, then
for the user to click a virtual button, it is a lot more work to do it, if
first, the user has to grab the mouse and position - it's sort of like two
motor-control tasks. This disadvantage isn't present in a work-environment
with only a computer (or at least not in the same degree...).

If the above is true, then one would expect this problem to go away once
users throw out their old instruments/machines and use a computer exclusively
- unless the advantages of these interfaces are so great that once they're on
the market, can't get off (which would indicate that these interfaces are of
good use, and that the reason that these interfaces aren't more universally
used has more to do with entry costs for these markets)

Does any of this make sense?

/Søren

Who btw am waiting to receive a new tablet pc (my first) any day now... very
much looking forward to it